Tag: Willow

Willow Island Logo

logo sketch

As I walk up Coxley Valley on a misty morning, I’m surrounded autumn leaves so, thinking about a new logo for Willow Island Editions, I decide that leaves might have more graphic impact than the tree-on-an-island logo that I currently use.

I pick up four crack willow leaves from alongside where the beck splits, creating the willow island that I used as a name for my self-publishing imprint.

A windswept version might have a lively look but the logo also needs a solid hint of authority as I want readers to feel that they can trust the instructions in my walks booklets.

“In nature you’re surrounded simple but stunning copyright-free design”

tree canop
Willow Island Logo: Willow Island Logo

As I sat with a latte and flapjack by the The Little Acorn, the coffee cabin at the top end of the wood, I felt that their pun of a logo shows that simpler can be better.

A woodcut-style ink drawing of the willow-leaf ‘W’ would be more punchy than using the soft autumn colours of the leaves themselves. It would also hint at my hand-drawn approach.

path amongst larches

The reason that I’m rethinking the look of Willow Island Editions is because I’m transferring my 27-year old website, www.willowisland.co.uk, from regular HTML to WordPress.

woodland path

I find that a quiet walk in the woods in the perfect way to clear my mind a bit and focus on design. In nature you’re surrounded simple but stunning copyright-free design.

Hepworth Willows

willows

Drawing on an iPad is ideal when you’re visiting the Hepworth as wet media aren’t allowed. I wanted to put into practice the tips that I’d picked up at the Procreate session at the Apple Store yesterday so I took a photograph as my starting point, not only as a guide to drawing as but also in order to extract a palette of autumnal colours from it.

willow and heron

The ragged shapes of willows didn’t give me much form to simplify so when I stopped for coffee I started again with a line drawing of the willow that I looked out at from the corner table by the window.

A heron stood motionless at the foot of the weir but didn’t seem to be having much luck in the middle of the foaming torrent. It evidently had an amazingly efficient heat exchange system to be able to tolerate the rush of water around its feet but it did eventually pause to lift its legs from the torrent and to briefly preen through its feathers.

Canal-side Willow

canal-side willowlamy nibsI like the extra fine nib Lamy pen filled with brown ink for detailed natural history drawings but this afternoon, as I set off in a wintry shower to draw this willow by the canal, I find the bold nib and black ink more useful. Shower over, the tree goes into high contrast, backlit by the sun, so it’s useful to be able to quickly build up tone in the shadow areas, following the pattern of the bark with quick pen lines.

As you can see from my photograph, the bold nib (in the yellow pen on the left) has a rounded end which moves easily in any direction over the cartridge paper of my sketchbook. Being larger, it is freer flowing, giving an satisfyingly inky line.

Willow

willow9.47 a.m.; A skein of forty Canada geese approach, honking as they go, from the north-west. The lead bird, followed by the rest of the chevron, has to make a considerable effort to climb to clear the power lines above me.

Grey willow, Salix cinerea, grows in damp acid soils, often, has here near ponds. It has a low spreading habit. A typical grey willow leaf tapers gradually from near the tip towards the base. The goat willow which you can find in similar habitats typically has a more rounded leaf.