Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
Another colourised dip into the envelope of my negatives from 1964 and this one is a mystery. As I develop the other photographs I’ll get a better clue to the locations that I visited during that year. I still have a Letts’ Schoolboy’s Diary from that year which should give me some clues.
You wouldn’t think it this morning but we live in a rainshadow area. This OS Rainfall Map from 1915 records over 60 inches average rainfall on the crest of the Pennines above Holmfirth and less than half that amount, around 24 inches down in Wakefield just 18 miles away.
So that’s about 5 feet of rain per year on the moors, 2 feet in Wakefield and getting on for 3 feet in between around Emley, where we’re heading this morning.
A rainy day proved a good opportunity to catch up with my Wild Yorkshire nature diary for The Dalesman but a trip to the Thorncliffe Farm Shop at Emley, gave us the excuse to see the outside world.
I drew these sycamores, almost devoid of leaves now, from the cafe.
I put the Chicken Superheroes artwork this morning but there were some familiar looking characters in the farm shop cafe . . .
On Wednesday morning the farmer was moving the cattle that graze the marshes at RSPB Saltholme from Paddy’s Pool over to the Saltholme Pools.
Happy birthday to Roger, who doesn’t need satnav to find his way around the Dales.
Beginner’s class for Border Collies, Low Hill, Hope Valley, Peak District. Two farmers are releasing the sheep in groups of four.
“How do you make sure that each group of sheep are consistent?”
“You don’t – that’s the point of it.”
“These four look well behaved?”
“Just wait until they get out there! They’ve come down from across the border: Scottish Blackface.”
It’s a perfect midsummer’s day for our walk from Wetherby alongside the River Wharfe, past Flint Mill Grange to Thorp Arch but we appreciate the shade of the Sustrans route along the old railway on the return leg.
Each bird has its favoured habitat. The song post for the yellowhammer in open farmland is on a phone line in contrast the blackcap makes a call that sounds like pebbles clacking together from the foliage of a tree in a deep, shady railway cutting. The warbler (willow?) prospects elegantly in the shrubs of a burgeoning hedgerow while the red kite swoops through parkland as we reach Thorp Arch.
Even George Clarke would struggle to restore this battered old horse box as an Amazing Space.
I drew it with a dip pen with a Clan Glengarry Pen nib, which has a rounded end, so you can draw it across the paper in any direction. It’s De Atramentis Archive Ink, which dries a lot quicker than regular Indian. I used a Chinese brush for the solid areas, which I dragged across the cartridge paper to give a suitably grungy tone.
Oh dear, it looks as if the game is up for our plucky little tenon saw. If there’s a moral to this folksy fable from Yes it is, it’s never put your trust in an even-toed ungulate.
These two could have auditioned for the latest series of All Creatures Great and Small but they’re appearing in one of the folksy fables in Yes it is. I like the pig – just need him to tilt his head on one side as he listens to the tale – but for the farmer I need his expression to be flummoxed rather than irate.
Although Yes it is has a retro children’s story setting, it deals with themes that are all too contemporary, like the loneliness and isolation – in this case the loneliness of this green ball. The fact that the author has specified the colour makes me tempted to go for a spot colour, perhaps backed up with blocks of neutral grey, to hint at the style of children’s book illustration in the 1950s and early 60s; I’m thinking of Dr Suess and Gene Zion’s Harry the Dirty Dog, illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham.
Margaret Bloy Graham uses a textured line which reminds me of conte crayon with a soft watercolour or gouache wash. With this in mind, I tried bamboo pen, to try and deliberately simplify the line (left) and dip pen (above) but inevitably, as I use it every day, I’m more relaxed drawing with a fountain pen, as in the farmer and his pig drawing, which was drawn in De Atramentis Document Ink with my Lamy Vista with an EF nib. That gives me more of the energy that I’m after, but without getting the particular vintage graphic look that I had in mind.
I’ve been using Photoshop for over twenty years but I’ve never got into using masks to select areas of an image, partly because I find it difficult to draw precise outlines with a mouse or a graphics pad. Now that there’s an iPad version of Photoshop I’m beginning to see the point of it. Masks are non-destructive, so your original image, in this case the highland cow, is still there if you decide you’ve erased too much of it.
The meadow is the river embankment at Skelton Lake, while to highland cow (or bull?) was grazing in a pasture at Middle Wood near Redmire Force on the River Ure in Wensleydale.