Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
We’ve had three named storms in the last seven days and we decided that Newmillerdam would be too windswept and waterlogged for our Monday morning walk.
So instead we headed for Dobbies Garden Centre, Shelley, where we could enjoy the view across the valley of Shepley Dike through the panoramic windows of the cafe.
Some of the flowers already showing in the garden this weekend. As Storm Eunice has just gone through and Storm Franklin is about to arrive, these were from photographs taken yesterday morning.
With the periwinkle and hellebore, I found that I started in the top left of the drawing intending to keep things fairly small but as I added detail the scale changed so when I started on the lungwort I sketched the outlines roughly in pencil, allowing enough space to add detail.
I think this speeded up the whole process because I was just able to get on with the pen, knowing that I wouldn’t have to start fiddling to fit it all in.
I didn’t pencil in the crocus and the snowdrop. They consist mainly of isolated verticals, so they can be drawn individually. The branching pattern of the first three plants that I’d drawn meant that the relationship of one part to another needed a bit more care. I look for negative shapes between the leaves and when starting a new flower or leaf I look for the angle to points on the plant that I’ve already drawn.
Even without the trail cam, I can tell that the foxes are back. I found these two tennis balls cached at the edge of my wild flower bed down by the compost bins this morning.
With Storm Eunice lashing the studio windows, this seemed like a good time to prepare for getting out and sketching when the spring weather comes, checking the contents of my main art bag. This was drawn in the 8×8 inch Pink Pig Ameleie sketchbook, using the Lamy pens and the Winsor & Newton professional watercolours that I keep in there.
All ready to go out sketching now , , , when the weather improves.
These are the last couple of pages – and the back inside cover – in my pocket-sized sketchbook.
The multi-stemmed sycamore grows behind the Halifax, last remaining bank in Ossett.
A rainswept night by the pond proved too much for my trusty trail cam, the Browning Strike Force Pro XD.
Despite the rugged rubber armour the damp appears to have got into it.
Let’s hope that Browning can help me get it into action again.
For a lean rescue dog, Pepper the Lurcher seemed remarkably calm but her owner tells me that he’s noticed that if he gets out any kind of pole, like a garden rake, she’ll go straight back in the house, so she might have had a troubled history. She reacted to bangs from the kitchen in the Coffee Stop at the Junction where I was drawing her and looked at me with soulful eyes when I tackled a slice of cheesecake. Needless to say she didn’t get any (but the dog-friendly cafe provides a healthy option canine treat).
Drawing indoors and in a rainswept car park: this morning’s rain meant that we didn’t get off to Newmillerdam. I was looking down on the cars at the same angle as I was looking down on the piles of books and CDs on the shelf under my brother-in-law’s coffee table, so they look like a couple of models.
The Main Street end of Church Street, Haworth, from a photograph I took in 2013, that’s the church on the right and, according to Google, we’re looking at the back of what is now Haworth Wholefoods.
The gallery of sketchbook pages that I posted the other day reminded me of a comic strip. Haven’t worked out the story yet but the chair reminds me of a Sherlock Holmes story . . .