Horse Chestnut Tree…slow Tree Following…

The Horse Chestnuts in the village have galloped ahead of me and are in full bloom, their fabulous scented candelabra flowers weighing down the trailing branches. I might get round to drawing a full flower head one day, but they are fiendishly complicated so probably not.

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One flower spike seems to have an average of about 25 individual flower stalks radiating out from the main stem. Each flower stalk may have from 2 to 9 or 10 individual  flowers. That would give roughly 150 flowers but they are not all in bloom at the same time.

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Flower stalks at the base of the flower spike develop first and flowers at the base of those flower stalks are the first to open. They have a yellowy centre initially which then turns crimson. The 5 petals are wavy edged and so very delicate, with long stamens curving down and up from the centre of the flower.
The flower spikes are also very fragile. I have one disintegrating on the desk, the delicate petals fall as soon as you touch them. It is one of those projects where you might draw three individual flower stems a year…then wait for the next season to come around and so on.

It might take many years to complete…….yawn. I do know of some patient and very skilled painters who would happily do that. Not me.

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So far I have more or less just looked in hesitant wonder at these complex things. But I have made a page of sketches and a couple of loose watercolours.

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A4 sketches … the spike is drawn life size.

The sketches help to work out the construction of its complex shape. One tree in particular is very much more advanced than the others and on the the lowest flower stem a little conker is forming. April seems so early. I brought just that one stem back to draw. This loose treatment seemed a good way of trying to portray the fragility of the flowers.

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Flower spike with first small conker, watercolour sketch

And one flower head.

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Each flower has 5 frilled petals The pollen on the stamens is ginger Tomorrow I am Easton Walled Gardens with my painting group and I know their Horse Chestnuts will be magnificent!
More conkery things to come.

Over at Beautiful Beasts I am continuing documenting progress of The Black Bee and the Pied Shieldbugs.

It will be finished this week.

Girlie the Berkshire Pig….again

The more I read about the Berkshires and the more I see them, the more I like them. I have an idea for a larger pig drawing/painting/print and have been wondering which pig to choose.

I am rather fond of Girlie who I met at Sylvia’s farm (see “Spotty Dotty and Girlie”) on a very muddy day in Feb and today I made a few more studies of her. The Berkshires are medium sized and have those lovely alert pricked ears and are a smart black/brown with a white blaze, white socks and a white tip to the tail.
For me the sketchbooks are an essential part of working out ideas. When you start drawing, more ideas occur as you work with the shapes, colours and sometimes the personality. This pig has oodles of that.

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“Girlie” sketchbookA4

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and a couple more…. I am almost convinced she is the one for my project.
See more about the Berkshires on Chris’ Salute the Pig Blog.

Tree Following: Chestnut Bud Development.

Despite a bitterly cold day today, spring is racing ahead and it’s hard to keep up. Some of the Horse Chestnut trees in the village are getting leafy. Now I am looking more at trees in general it is interesting to note how early this tree has come into leaf. It must be one of the earliest. The newly opening buds are really beautiful. As the feathery, deeply ridged new leaves open up they reveal a tiny new flower spike, each floret tightly curled.

On the drawing board

This bud is only just opening and the protective scales and the outside surfaces of the leaves are still hairy

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Watercolour and pencil 6 x 8” approx

This one has opened up quite a bit more. The small leaflets are breaking free.

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This one has opened further: pencil and watercolour approx 6 x 8” approx

This twig below has no flower buds, they are only developing into leaves. It’s hard to believe these tiny delicate furled things will develop into the huge shady parasols of the mature trees. For me it’s always that bucolic scene of dozing cattle, swishing tails and chewing cud, sheltering from the sun under its generous spreading boughs. Such a beautiful parkland tree.

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Pencil and watercolour sketch 8 x10

Lucy, who is organising the tree following posed the question. “Is it possible to tell before the buds open up which will have flowers and which won’t.” I have never really thought about it so had another look at the tree today.

What I noticed is that the buds low down or near the trunk are not opening to flower spikes, just leaves. Buds at the end of the outside branches all seem to have flower spikes. Which makes quite a bit of sense. Flowers need to be up and out there, where the pollinators can find them.

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he big candelabra flowers spikes will be a challenge to draw!

Catching Up: More British Museum Sketches and more adders

Last Saturday I returned to the British Museum for a couple of hours to do a bit more research and sketching.

Working on the Beautiful Beasts blog has made me wonder why we so like to make images of animals. Of course, the use of animal imagery in art, design and utilitarian objects warrants a lifetime of study, each culture having its own different beliefs, magic and symbolic systems and there is a wealth of info in the Museum.

I go to the Museum to read, as much as to look and draw and on Saturday I particularly wanted to read about the Egyptian mummified animals and then get a quick visit to the fabulous Beyond El Dorado Power and gold in ancient Colombia” exhibition of exquisite golden and ceramic artefacts.

The animal mummies in Egypt were prepared for various reasons; a favourite pet to accompany you, an offering to the appropriate animal god or as food in the afterlife. In the main animal mummy case are cats, small crocodiles, falcons, a baboon, bronze relic boxes for a snake and an eel, a beautiful ibis case and fish “coffins”. There is nowhere to sit, so it’s a matter of drawing on the move while dodging the crowds .. the lines are a bit wobbly!

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Everyone is fascinated by the cats. One in particular has a smile. One apprehensive little girl wanted reassurance that they were really dead.The linen wrappings are very beautifully executed with contrasting coloured cloths in a geometric pattern.

In another case were two forlorn bulls which don’t attract much attention, so I could wedge myself in a corner by the case to draw.

“Bulls were sacred to several gods. The famous Apis bull at Memphis was considered the earthly manifestation of Ptah, through which he issued oracles” from the British Museum Website

 

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The wisdom of the bull.. Beyond El Dorado On to the El Dorado exhibition which was packed. It was impossible to stand and draw without getting in the way of the tide of people, so I just made a few notes.

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This is an exquisite little gold staff decoration.
From the British Museum Website.

“The exhibition will explore the complex network of societies in ancient Colombia – a hidden world of distinct and vibrant cultures spanning 1600 BC to AD 1600 ….The remarkable objects displayed across the exhibition reveal glimpses of these cultures’ spiritual lives including engagement with animal spirits though the use of gold objects, music, dancing, sunlight and hallucinogenic substances that all lead to a physical and spiritual transformation enabling communication with the supernatural.”

There were some interesting snake related items. I was particularly pleased to read that snakes were revered for their ability to move easily between the elements of earth, water and sky (through jumping) and through the shedding of their skins were linked with concepts of renewal…..Go snakes!

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A few notes of the lovely little ceramic figures from Lake Guatavita. A5 sketchbook. T

here is so much material to work with and so many ideas to pursue. If you are ever in need of inspiration, a trip to the British Museum is the answer, but take a sketchbook not a camera. You will see much more.

Adder Progress…is slow… But steady and I am back to the adders for Beautiful Beasts this week. The two 2 lino prints in preparation are going to be an opportunity for more experimentation. It’s the end of March very soon and so I am concentrating on getting previous idea resolved and a few things finished. One quarter of the year already gone..how did that happen!

Charcoal Kilns from Grafham and Holme Fen.

Charcoal, made at Grafham Water, from the reservoir willows

This rather special charcoal was made for me by Grafham Wildlife Trust wardens Aidan and Greg and their charcoal burning gang and it is, of course, made from the local willows.

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It’s the first time they have tried making charcoal for drawing. Normally it’s chunkier pieces for BBQ charcoal as you can see by the bag. The secret is to have a very slow burn, steady heat and flat straight twigs.The twigs are normally laid in sand in tins.

This looked good. Aidan told me the biscuit tin they used was destroyed but this is definitely usable charcoal. To work with it is unpredictable. Some parts are too hard and then you will find a very soft section which gives a sudden rich dark line. It was, without doubt, very pleasing to draw the Grafham Water willows with willow charcoal made up in Grafham Water woods. The charcoal kilns are in Littless Wood.  I made some sketches a couple of years go. Their simple solid geometric shapes are very pleasing, against the more organic lines of trees and foliage. There are two kilns there… or certainly were last year, I have not been back yet this year, but I must get back, now the track is drying up.

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The kilns are not so large.. the tall trees give some idea of them in the landscape.

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A wheel barrow with sacks and some logs ready to burn.

You can join a charcoal burning party along Aidan and Greg with the Wildlife Trust.
The next course is on the 11th May. I would love to go but we will be away…in Amsterdam…so can’t really complain.

Holme Fen Charcoal Kiln: a remnant from the Second World War.

But I did go back to Holme Fen with Sue on Friday, for a couple of hours sketching and to find the charcoal kiln that I had read about in the guide.
A small sunken kiln base, without its conical top, is all that remains of the extensive tree felling and charcoal burning operation which took place during the Second World War to provide charcoal, possibly for wood gas to power vehicles or for gunpowder. The ring of iron is sinking into the peat. It is being overtaken by rhododendron seedlings and brambles. In the still chilly morning with very little but birdsong to keep us company it was a beautiful place to sketch.

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Two line sketches done on site. I often add tone but we only had half an hour so no time for much more than notes. I did not have a camera with me, or rather I did not have the SD card, but I jotted down enough info to make a slightly more atmospheric drawing when I came home. It’s a simple enough shape and the foliage was mainly ferns, rhododendrons and brambles. I had made a note of the sun direction and cast shadows and a small detail of the rim.

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Holme Fen Charcoal Kiln. pen and ink. A4

I had also taken my chunky Grafham charcoal with me and made a couple of sketches of the beautiful silver birches.

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For me, used to dark woods of oak and ash, these tall pale ghostly trees with the light shimmering from their silvery trunks make for a strange treescape. Lovely, ethereal and slightly unsettling.

I am looking forward to returning soon.

Horse Chestnut Tree…Some Progress

The Height of a Tree On Saturday I co-opted Chris to help me try to calculate the height of the Church Field Horse Chestnut Tree. There are various ways, I had not realised so many. A handy guide from WikiHow gives some instructions. “Measure a Tree” I opted for a very simple one of asking a friend to stand by the tree.

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So here is Chris standing next to the tree. With a bit of rough calculation we think the tree is about 58 ft high. It is also interesting to see a 6 ft figure by the tree. The human figure really gives an idea of the scale of these magnificent trees.

Two More Sticky Bud Developments

I’m trying to catch the bud development of the Horse Chestnut twig. I have two buds beginning to split, which I drew today. As the sticky scales develop, and open up,  the first four leaves begin to show at the very tip. They are furry, covered in white fine downy hair and tightly curled up. It’s a fascinating contrast of smooth, sticky, shiny scales with the downy hairs of the emerging leaves .

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Watercolour and pencil sketch: 8 x 5 inches

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Watercolour and pencil sketch: 9 x4 inches

I am keeping all the Tree Following posts together on another blog: www.followingtrees.blogspot.com  It’s going to be nice to see the continuity through the year.

Also it’s easier for the other tree followers to find. If you are taking part, this is the week to sign in with Lucy. There is an update box once a month on the 7th which will stay open for a week.
There are lots of people, not just from the UK, taking part. It will be fascinating.

Adders: What’s not to love?

My Beautiful Beast for this week is the English Adder or Common Viper Vipera berus, and indeed it is very beautiful.
It seems unforgivable that these fascinating, timid and endangered creatures have over the centuries been treated with such hatred, fear and persecution. While it is understandable to have an innate fear of dangerous, possibly life threatening animals, ignorance and religion have a lot to answer for in the ridiculous demonisation of various creatures, but of snakes in particular.

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Photo by Alan Hyde from  Reptiles and Amphibians of the UK.

Yes, it is classed as venomous but you would be very very unlucky to be bitten and even more unlucky to die.

I have only seen one adder and that was when I was a child in Scotland. My father saw it basking in the sun on a woodland path. There was no panic or alarm and we were told just to be quiet and respectful and to leave it be.
I remember watching it slide away slowly into the bracken. But adders do have a long and fascinating history in folklore and superstition.

The Amphibian and Reptile  Conservation Trust ( ARC)  have a page of collected stories:  http://adder.narrs.org.uk/folklore.php. They are also inviting you to record adder sightings and to spread a bit of adder appreciation…even if you can’t quite stretch to adder love.
I watched again the lovely interview on Springwatch from a couple of years ago with Sylvia Sheldon, about her work recording adders and her fabulous book of unique adder ID photos.

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I challenge you to watch this and not be charmed. Watch it here. But what to draw? How to tackle an image? What do I want to do? To win you you with cartoony cuteness, to instil more fear by emphasising their fangs, those steady, always open red eyes and threatening poses, or to try to show you something of their beauty, their grace, their patterns and fascinating life cycle.  As always my sketchbook is my starting point.

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The beautiful red eye and a thought about camouflage And two small watercolour sketches following the same thought.

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I really like these.  It’s a very busy week ahead so I may just spend the Beautiful Beasts time learning more about adders, sketching and thinking about developing my adder woodcut a bit more.

There is also some pressing bee gardening to be done, a trip to Holme Fen weather permitting, our first Easton Walled Gardens Workshop on Friday, keeping up with the Horse Chestnut and I am getting the oils out. 🙂

Sketch Notes from the British Museum 1: Incomplete Animals

In January I resolved to go and sketch somewhere different once a month. I didn’t make it in January, but on Thursday, with Beautiful Beasts and the dragon puppet in mind, I spent a few hours at the British Museum. It is my very favourite place in London and I never leave without finding something new and fabulous. This time the trip was for more for visual research, than sketching for its own sake and I spent a long time just wandering and looking, and then returning to make notes. I made about 20 rough notes of beasts, bits of sculpture, of fabrics and ceramics. I was looking for dragons, found a few, but saw many other bizarre and wonderful creatures too.

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Dragons, lions, a cat, dogs, horses, a pig, a hen, a fire serpent, a harpy and a frog… from various rooms at the British Museum.  Pen in A5 sketchbook.

Incomplete Animals

Following on from my Incomplete Dodo from the Hunterian Museum, and as you might expect in the British Museum, I found some more delightful  incomplete animals. This is a pegleg Chinese Horse

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The Pegleg Horse, the sketch and my sketch kit.

My sketching kit is very simple. One pen, 2 sketchbooks one A5 and one A4 and a water pen which I sometimes use.

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he Peg Leg Chinese Horse, A5 sketchbook

And then I found some wired crouching lion guards from the Nereid Monument in room 17.  One has a disembodied foot, both have missing bottom jaws.. poor things.

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A metalwork lion and one of the great crouching Nereid lions

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Another view of the crouching jawless lion, some of the beautiful big Chinese ceramic horses and a macabre little figure made of lead and glass with an ivory mask face. It was straight out of a Quay brothers film. But this one from the 7thC AD. Turkey. A4 Sketchbook

But my very favourite thing from this trip was a small stucco fragment of a horse being embraced by two disembodied arms, what a beautiful thing it is.

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Fragment of a Horse.
Ming-oi, near Shorchuk, 8th-10th C.  Stucco with traces of paint.

I decided this would be my subject for Beautiful Beasts next week. I returned to the Museum for an hour yesterday and made some more notes which I will post this coming week. I could just take photos but drawing something means you have to spend a long time looking at it.

Sometimes the thing turns out not to be as interesting as you had hoped,  but often it is through the quiet, slow, observation and drawing that you fall in love with it and find some unexpected beauty.

The Simplicity of Line

Over at the artist’s twitter group it’s #linefebruary. So this week I have been doing some line sketching.
Line, to me, means just line, which could be reproduced in only black and white with no halftones. I normally take a wash brush with me to add tonal values but this week for a change I have used just black and white and different combinations of pens, some dip pens, some technical pens

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Everywhere are tangles of brambles.

There is a place on the path where heaps of long mown meadow grass have been slowly drying and disintegrating. They provide cover for small animals who have burrowed into the heaps and the wind has formed  them into swirls.

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I an rather fascinated by these forms and make this white on black study of one of the heaps.

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Windy reservoir …

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…and thumbnails of bits and pieces. All approx A4.

I have put this page in upside down, which makes things even more interesting. They are all based on  the reservoir walks so I know exactly what and where they were, although some bear very little resemblance to the place.
Perhaps you could say they just have something of the essence of each place, which is often all that an artist really wants to achieve. I love pure black and white. It provides a different view and proposes many different possibilities. Some of the marks can be wonderful if you can let them happen.

The Bone Drawings: Beautiful Labyrinth, Something of the Rabbit, Lucy’s Skull and a Tiny Corset.

I have spent a very happy week drawing bones for Beautiful Beasts. After sketching and printmaking it’s great to sit down for some concentrated observation. I started off with sketches and then looked for some particular aspect of the bone that appealed to me. Here are the drawings. For more explanations and photos etc click on the titles to go to the Beautiful Beasts blog posts.

Under the Skin 2: The Beautiful Labyrinth….

A long bone I found near the reservoir. At one end there is glimpse of the interior structure. That’s what I liked

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A4 Sketchbook: pencil.


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The whole bone: pencil


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Detail of above… the part I liked

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Pencil study of the beautiful labyrinthine structure. I could have gone on for days …
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Under the Skin 3 : Something of the Rabbit about it

A curious thing, I now know to be a rabbit’s jawbone.

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Pencil with a stray piece of dry grass.

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Watercolour study

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Drybrush  watercolour study

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Under the Skin 4 : Lucy’s Skull and the Tiny Corset

The lovely muntjac skull that my friend Lucy gave me.

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A4 Sketchbook

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Watercolour Study

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Gouache study

The Tiny Corset

The last bone. It’s a small upturned skull which was casting a long eloquent shadow, or it’s a tiny corset for a fairy, whichever you prefer.

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Pencil:  4 x 2 inches.
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Footbone note : The reproduction of pencil work has always been problematic. It still is. Scanning tends to reflect the shiny dark pencil and lightens the image. It  becomes a poor thing in relation to its original, with many mid and light tones missing. It’s fine as a record but when I see fine pencil work on the internet I can appreciate just how good the original must be.