Recent sketches from my 125×90 mm Hahnemühle D&S sketchbook. Tones added in Photoshop.
Sketches
The Top End of the Wood
A jay screeches from up in the trees as I climb the steps to the Arboretum at Newmillerdam but woodland birds aren’t much in evidence as I walk briskly along, just the odd blue tit and great tit up in the branches and, more conspicuously, robins which are more on my level.
As a change from making a circuit of the lake, I’m heading up to the top end of the woods, towards the former railway cutting, where I haven’t been for years.
The original track between the drystone wall and the shelter belt of poplars gets steadily more overgrown with brambles as I walk along it before switching to the newer track alongside the Arboretum.
Reminding me of a scene from the Everglades, three cormorants, including a brown juvenile with a patch of white on its breast, sit on the twisting branches of a dead tree which rises from the shallows on a quieter stretch of the lake shore. A fourth cormorant splashes about near to them, going through a vigorous bathing routine.
Bird of Prey
A guest diary from Barbara from three weeks ago:
Tuesday 23rd November 2021
A buzzard chased by a crow swoops between the houses across the road, it appeared to have something long in its talons, Richard said a snake, I doubt it but can’t imagine what it could be
Barbara Bell
We looked in the road to see if it had dropped anything. We now suspect that this must have been an escaped bird of prey with jesses still attached. We thought how unusual it would be to see a buzzard flying so low, even when mobbed by crows, so perhaps it was some other species, such as a harris hawk.
Cache of Nuts
Later that morning we walked around St Aidan’s RSPB reserve in the Aire Valley:
After a welcome cuppa at Rivers Meet, Methley, we stride out back over the river bridge, lovely big blue sky and feeling quite warm in the sun.
We pause to watch a Jay at the side of the path. It seems to have found a cache of nuts and is unearthing them. We watch it from a short distance: the colours of the blue on its wing and the black moustache show up really well in the clear light. Meanwhile a perky robin forages around behind.
Barbara Bell
The jay removed six or more peanuts from each of several holes dotted around the turf within a few yards of each other. Had the jay previously cached them, or had it spotted a squirrel burying them?
We weren’t far from the village of Methley, so perhaps these had come from a garden feeder. In which case I think that it would more likely be a bird that cached them because the river would present too much of an obstacle to a squirrel and we were perhaps 200 yards along the path from the bridge.
Mooring Ring
The bridge at the end of the Balk over the Calder & Hebble Canal, Addingford, and a mooring ring on Beeston Bridge, by the Strands, Horbury Bridge.
Christmas in a Box
It was a close thing, setting up The Night before Christmas display the Redbox Gallery’s telephone box on Queen Street, Horbury, this morning but with a few adjustments we were able to fit the sleeping dog, cat and mouse on the wedge-shaped space by the hearth.
The Christmas stockings that Barbara ran up at short notice work well with knitted characters from her late – and much missed – mum, Betty.
We were tweaking and trying to plan for every hidden snag we might meet but it all went smoothly, thanks to the help of Graham Roberts of Horbury Civic Society (who run the Redbox Gallery project) and Sarah Town who brought along the paper chains and baubles made by the local Brownies.
We particularly liked the clothes peg/paper doily doll angel they made which presides over the whole affair hanging in the crowded airspace amongst the paper chains.
Cat and Mouse
I’ve drawn the sleeping dog and the cat and mouse as cut outs today but it looks as if we won’t have room for the dog.
‘S’ is for the Stocking
Our Christmas card in a telephone box is taking shape but we had a setback when members of the local Brownie group, who’ve been busy handcrafting Christmas decorations for the show, had to call off their final crafting session because of two cases of Covid.
Barbara came to the rescue and ran up the Christmas stockings and the Bonsai frosted fir trees, which, along with the Christmas card byline, we’d hoped to get the Brownies to make at a crafting session.
Cat Napping
‘Not a creature is stirring . . .’ in my Night Before Christmas scene but how do I imply that the mouse isn’t going to end up as a midnight snack for the cat?
I’m going for more of a cartoon look for the mouse.
Although I’d follow Beatrix Potter’s method of not adding much in the way of costume when she needed to emphasise the animal nature of her character.
Sleeping Dogs
We’ll be setting up the Night Before Christmas display in the Redbox Gallery on Friday and, as a break from constructing the scenery out of foamboard, I’ve moved on to the sleeping dog character.
‘No creature was stirring’, says the poem, so that’s the mood I’m going for here.
The Curtains were Drawn
The curtains were drawn but the Ektorp sofa was real.
With apologies to Spike Milligan and Ikea. And a shout out for Plumbs, who supplied the curtains.