Now hitting the news stands, my latest article for the March Dalesman, featuring botanical illustrations by John Edward Sowerby for Thomas Gissing’s Ferns of Wakefield (1862).
Fascinating Ferns
Tag: Dalesman
Dalesman Diary
Yesterday I completed the last spread of a year’s worth of my nature diaries for the Dalesman. I’ve been writing for the magazine for 12 years now, once a month or bimonthly, so it now runs to 132 articles, more than 250 pages.
This is the first time that I’ve managed to get so far ahead. The icy weather at the start of the year gave me the opportunity to put in a good session and I completed six articles, which just made me all the more determined to get on with the remaining six so that I’d be a full year ahead.
My deadline is always 6 or 7 weeks before the month that I’m writing about so in that way I’ve always been thinking ahead but at the same time I’ve always looking back, looking through my wildyorkshire.blog posts for ideas from nine months ago.
At last I’ll be able to write and draw my articles in real time, in the present! But I’ll have to wait a year to see them in print.
Fascinating Ferns
Back to work on my Thomas Gissing ‘Ferns of Wakefield’ article for a forthcoming ‘Dalesman’.
The ferns, horsetail and clubmoss on the right-hand page are by botanical illustrator John Edward Sowerby (1825-1870). With exception of the clubmosses and the rare parsley fern, all the illustrations in the book were drawn from specimens that Gissing had collected within 12 miles of Wakefield.
Waterton’s Park
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.
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.
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.
Guest Artist
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.
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.
Tales of the Riverbank
On the news stands now, my latest Dalesman nature diary.
Sketching by the Pond
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.
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.
The View from the Boathouse
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.
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
Cross Country
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.