Tag: sketchbook

More Print Trials, More Plant Notes

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Another week of research, print trials etc. Sometimes there is not much to show for the hours, in finished picture terms, but the print trials are very useful. Different papers different ink combinations etc.
These are a few small sections of the trials. I really like these little pieces, there are whole other worlds contained in them.

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And more plant sketches… again not much to look at but a very very useful bit of visual note making.

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pl1      pl3      Untitled-7

Colour, shape, history, etc etc Its all very interesting.

September Daily Sketchbook

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I’m back to the good discipline of keeping a daily note/sketchbook.This time my September plan is to make some sort of A4 sketch/pattern/colour note every day. It has to be in colour and the colour has to fill the page. It has to take no more than about half an hour.
In the last two Easton workshops we had been considering backgrounds …even if you decide not to have one. Sometimes its easier to just paint/draw on the white paper. Printmaking has made me think more about the backgrounds. Even if its just the detail. This month should be interesting.

Outdoor sketching in …yes… sun!!It has seemed rare this summer. The First 7 Sketches

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Today: Monday morning early. A little egret flew alongside me as I cycled by the reservoir. I was reminded of Florida.

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Garden 2: Weekend Sun

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Starlings: They never fail to entertain. They are very spotty at the moment.

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Grey Reservoir Day

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Straw Bales: Harvest is nearly all in.

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Lilac Bergamot: some last blooms outside my workroom window.

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Garden 1. The garden is just on the turn from Summer to Autumn. Yellows,deep black greens in the shade, ochre greens of the turning leaves, lilacs and purples of late chives, monarda and little asters.
It seemed a good place to start.

Sketchbook Crickets and Grasshoppers

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Earlier in the autumn there was a bright green spindly legged cricket in the wardrobe. They are strange and wonderful things. There are quite a few in the Garden in the summer, and of course grasshoppers are all around the reservoir.
I am planning a series of prints of singing, chirping, humming things for a woodland project and have been blogging these over on the blog I share with Sue.

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Sketchbook sketches A5 sketchbook and some more thumbnails….

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I have been planning a few prints and sometime soon a small booklet might appear but for now No1 lino block and proof print. I have taken quite a bit of artistic license with this “grasshopper”  but it’s fine for some more experiments and does have some of the essence of the sketches and grasshoppery-ness about it.

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4 more to come ..

First chilly outdoor sketches of 2015.

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Log Piles: Ordered disorder In the pale almost warm winter sun I went for a morning cycle/walk. It’s quite a while since I have been so far; up through the wood and along to the spinney where in the summer the dainty little Dexter cattle graze.

Someone has been clearing and chopping and small piles of logs are scattered around. There is something very pleasing about a pile of logs. They are imperfectly neat. An attempt by man to make some sort of order out of twisty natural forms. I stopped to make some very speedy ink sketches.

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Ink sketches in A5 Sketchbook. My fingers got cold very quickly.

The sketches are .. well, sketchy… but it was just good to be outside, looking at things properly, making a start, seeing wrens, robins, a million blackbirds , pheasants, partridge and many tiny birds dancing about in the brambles, and they are my first outdoor sketches for this year.. a bit of a late start but a start.
The weather forecast for the next few days is awful so it may be a while before I do any more. I am a bit of a fair weather pleinair sketcher:) I was struck by how the woods were full of greens, from the brilliant acid green of moss and lichen to the blue greens of old leaves and the oak tree bark, to the soft olive greens and brown greens of general undergrowth. I’m going to investigate these some more tomorrow …

Horse Chestnut Tree…slow Tree Following…

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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.

Catching Up: More British Museum Sketches and more adders

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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!

Birds and Bees

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Black Headed Gulls
Yesterday I went to Perry for an afternoon walk and stopped at the bird hide which overlooks the reservoir looking north. Right in front was a gang of black headed gulls perching on the wooden posts. There was much preening and primping, sleeping and occasionally squawking. Some have their dark brown heads and some are in grey headed winter plumage.They have a very attractive white eye border which gives them lots of character.

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It was calm, very quiet and very peaceful. It’s a good place to make a few sketches with a bench and ID guides.

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Some balance on quite small posts and have to keep shifting their weight.

 

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Some find larger posts and sleep.

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A little Goldeneye swam past too. I have been working some more on the woodcut this week and am thinking how these birds might work as prints.

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Black headed Gull A washy watercolour sketch :

I like this relaxed pose where they tuck their head back. His post is just slightly too small though. :).There was quite a bit of shuffling.

Bumble Bees!

Back in the garden I have seen lots of Bombus terrestris now. I am wondering if they are queens from the rescue colony, because last year they were not so numerous. I would like to think so. They are on the bird cherry, winter honeysuckle, crocus and surprisingly to me on the little violets. I had not seen them on the violets before but it seems they are a good nectar source. This bee spent quite a while on each flower.

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A gorgeous bee on equally gorgeous flower..some nice complementary colours there! It’s great to see them.

Adders: What’s not to love?

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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. 🙂

Horse Chestnut Twig

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A few more sketches for the Horse Chestnut Tree Following project. . I realised yesterday that I would have to get a move on to record its development. I had picked 3 small pieces from one of the big Church Field trees last weekend and already one has, exuberantly, burst into leaf. I kept a couple cool and dark and today made some sketches of them  in their (almost) dormant state.

 

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These lumpy twigs are fascinating and complex to draw.There are the clear sections to the stem separated by heavily ribbed sections and, in this twig, the very top section is slightly thicker than the one below. The characteristic horseshoe leaf scars under the buds have different numbers of “nails”.

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The second twig had a large bud at the top which is just beginning to burst; the dark sticky coating shrinking as the russet scales stretch and split, revealing the palest, prettiest, spring green of the tightly folded leaves inside.

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Watercolour sketch.

It’s a beautiful thing and warrants a larger more detailed painting… so much to do so little time!