Tones

cloth hat

I’m reading Marcos Mateu-Mestre’s Framed Drawing Techniques and trying his suggestions for using tone. This cloth hat lying on my desk was drawn with an Apple Pencil on my iPad Pro in areas of tone only – no initial line drawing – using the Lasso Fill tool in Clip Studio Paint.

potatoes

Previously, as in this drawing of chitted potatoes, I’ve gone for a linocut or silkscreen printing effect using areas of solid tone, set to 100% opacity.

tone swatches

But following Mateu-Mestre’s method in his chapter on The Gray Scale, these tone swatches are actually all based on pure black.

Tone number one really is black but it was applied with a Clip Studio brush set to 70% opacity. The resulting grey was then sampled with the eyedropper tool and painted as swatch 2 but again at 70% opacity, making it that bit lighter and so on, grading the tones almost to pure white.

Blackthorn Blossom

blackthorn
bay

We’re on a north-facing slope, so the blackthorn blossom appears late and is still hanging on.

There are clusters of cream flowers on the bay, we haven’t noticed them in previous years. Bay is a member of the Lauraceae, the laurel family.

An Easterly Breeze

cumulus

Meteorologist Tomasz Schafernaker apologised for using the phrase ‘easterly breeze’ repeatedly through his forecast yesterday but that’s what’s dominated the weather today. My barometer is showing 29.6 in Hg, 1002 mB, so it’s fine but the breeze from across the North Sea is keeping it cool and keeping the cloud moving.

stagshorn sumac
Stagshorn sumac
Published
Categorized as Drawing

Opium Poppy

Himalayan poppy

This opium (not Himalayan) poppy had seeded itself on one of the veg beds, so I’ve transferred it to my plants for pollinators bed and it seems to be settling in.

foxglove

This foxglove rosette will be relocated too, when we put in the runner beans and dwarf French.

chard
Chard

Vis News Interview

Vis News article
Vis News cover

Last month I was interviewed in Vis News, the Visual Narratives Academy Newsletter, by David Haden, who writes:

This issue we interview a fine British comics maker and illustrator who clevely combines digital methods with traditional looks. It’s a long and informative interview.

Vis News, March 2022

You can download a PDF of the article below (and it looks good if you can view it as double-page spreads).

Some of the double-page spreads in the Vis News interview

Vis News Interview

VisNews_Richard_Bell_2022Download

Link

Visual Narratives Academy

Beetroot

Alongside the chard I drew the other day there’s a row of beetroot, although I suspect by now they’ll be far too woody to use.

Chard

chard

What’s left of the chard will be coming out soon when we start with the runner beans and dwarf French beans in this bed. This morning I put in 50 Setton onion sets, which we covered with netting, not just to prevent blackbirds and pigeons pulling them out but also to prevent foxes rolling about and digging on the veg bed as they did last year.

I forked a sprinkling of fish, blood and bone before planting the onion sets and it’s probably the smell of it that attracts the foxes. I’ve set up the trail cam to check on whether they turn up as expected.

Published
Categorized as Garden Tagged

Life at the Yellow House

Van Gogh cartoon

Happy birthday to Van Gogh enthusiast Ivy. I’ve never been as keen on Gauguin, but Googling his self portraits I love the character he creates for himself. But definitely not a guy that I’d like to share the Yellow House at Arles with during the mistral season.

birthday greeting

Birch Mirror

silver birch
birch mirror acrylic painting

In the spring of 1996 I’d just finished my book Yorkshire Rock which for several years had involved drawing lots of small illustrations, mainly from reference, so I felt the need to get out to draw from life again.

I took a portable easel and a set of acrylics into Coxley Valley and painted entirely on location, making a point of never finishing anything off when I got back home. I’d had enough of being stuck at my desk, now every brushstroke had to be painted directly from the natural world.

This silver birch grew on the slope directly beneath pylon cables. My theory is that while still a sapling it had been flattened by falling ice or snow but it continued to grow, framing the view beyond.

acrylic paints

To keep things simple I took only the three primaries with me, plus white. I used an enamel jug or billy can which I dipped in the beck for my water. I used the billy can itself for cleaning brushes and the smaller enamel mug which served as a lid was for clean water for mixing colours.