Tag: Dalesman

Waterton’s Park

Walton Park spread
A camera-shy Waterton with his friend Dr Hobson

We’ve been out on location researching my September article for the ‘Dalesman’ magazine and I thought I’d go for an IMAX-style panorama of Charles Waterton’s nature reserve at Walton Hall, Wakefield, which, as you can see from the 1865 engraving, has now been restored to its former glory, thanks to extensive tree-planting and landscaping by the Waterton Park Golf Club.

cayman
Charles Waterton wrangling a cayman on the River Essequibo, Guyana.

I’ve dropped in contemporary engravings of Waterton’s adventures – a bit of a comic-strip version of the life of a complex character, imagining it as if it was a magic lantern show of his exploits.

Waterton getting a closer view of the Bempton Cliffs seabird colony.

As a graphic designer/illustrator, I’ve gone for layout first, text to follow. The placeholder text is a corrupted version of a text by Cicero, which I feel that Waterton might approve of as he had a habit of dropping Latin quotes into his natural history essays.

A cool-headed Waterton returns an escaped rattlesnake to its cabinet at a scientific meeting at Dr Hobson’s house at Park Square, Leeds.

Guest Artist

Dalesman

A guest illustrator in my nature diary in the July ‘Dalesman’: Jenny Hawksley, who joined us for a lightning tour of the North Yorks Moors and coast last summer drew the garland of wild flowers.

dalesman

Morels and Scurvygrass

This month’s spread from the Dalesman. The morel growing from the foot of a wall just down the road was a new species for me.

Sketching by the Pond

Dalesman spread

I’m working on my July issue of my Wild Yorkshire nature diary for The Dalesman using Adobe InDesign and Photoshop to fit everything in.

Dalesman spread

Being pressed for space I’ve tried to fit the swarming bees into the margin and, to add to the drama, instead of my usual smiling mugshot, I’ve tried a cartoon of Barbara and I on bee alert, blocking holes with steel wool and masking tape. This might not make it into the final cut, but I like to experiment.

Bee alert
bee sketches

The View from the Boathouse

Boathouse cafe

Just a taste (in this case a Bakewell and a latte) of the research that I’ve put into my article The bear, the bulldog and the boathouse, celebrating the 200th anniversary of the Boathouse at Newmillerdam, in the March issue of The Dalesman, out today.

Boathouse cafe

That chair is on the spot where sharp-shooting French bulldog enthusiast Lady Kathleen Pilkington (see article) sat 121 years ago in 1902.

My thanks to Experience Wakefield, www.experiencewakefield.co.uk for their support when I was researching this article.

Links

Dalesman website

The Yorkshire Dalesman

The Boathouse, Newmillerdam

Experience Wakefield

Newmillerdam Community and Conservation Association

Cross Country

Dalesman spread

Memories of wintry cross country ‘runs’ (actually my friend and I strolled once we were out of sight of the school, which didn’t take long on a foggy morning) in my ‘Wild Yorkshire’ nature diary in this month’s Dalesman.

Addingford Steps: green spaces

Dalesman

My Addingford show in the Redbox Gallery in Horbury comes to an end later this month but I’m following up its theme of the importance to us all of having a ‘local patch’ in my November ‘Wild Yorkshire’ column in The Dalesman.

Rather than it being just me saying how much I value this stretch of the Calder Valley, I thought I should quote one of the many studies that suggest that being in nature can benefit our physical and mental health. This study from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA was made before the pandemic, but seems even more relevant now:

 Green space can provide mental health benefits and possibly lower risk of psychiatric disorders. This nation-wide study covering >900,000 people shows that children who grew up with the lowest levels of green space had up to 55% higher risk of developing a psychiatric disorder independent from effects of other known risk factors. 

Residential green space in childhood is associated with lower risk of psychiatric disorders from adolescence into adulthood, PNAS, 2019

Yorkshire Rock

Dalesman article

The July Dalesman arrived in this morning’s post and my ‘Wild Yorkshire’ nature diary has a suitably rocky theme, as this year my British Geological Survey paperback, Yorkshire Rock, a journey through time, celebrates 25 years in print.

Watercolour Border

I’ve redrawn this border from my Dalesman nature diary featuring the walk around the lake at Newmillerdam Country Park, near Wakefield. In the first version, I thought that the pen and ink was competing too much with the text. To soften it I’ve gone for:

  • soft B pencil instead of black ink
  • textured watercolour paper instead of smooth cartridge
  • loose brushwork, all with a no. 10 sable round, instead of trying to define what textures are
page layout