Category Archives: sketching

wax crayon, c.A2

Sketching at local reservoir. Started off by sketching the flycatching black-headed gulls. Moving in little circuits, able to fly very (apparently) lazily into the cool breeze, a limpid slow moving patch of water beneath them where they would dip bills to pick up something on the surface or crane necks to snap at an air borne morsel.
Feeling that I wanted to look at the bigger space and use my pieces of paper in a more spatial way… always this battle on how to show the things seen close up through the optical equipment and the sense of place gathered with naked eye.

Large female sparrowhawk feeding on feral pigeon in the garden. Something about the ease and proximity of viewing and maybe the subject matter really throwing me… Same has happened with cheetahs and tiger in the past… just going to pieces with the sketching….focussing on minutiae and losing the bigger sweep. Just starting to get something together with this sketch when a friend called… Good that it is taking out these pigeons anyway… since a school opened nearby they have moved in, perching on neighbours roof and taking advantage of her feeders.

Weekend away in wales staying at a friends house… really lucky with weather which was mostly clear skies with heavy overnight frosts. The light about as good as we could have hoped for. My outdoor gear is the best I’ve ever had and meaning that aside from the hands I didn’t suffer from the cold at all.

The velvet mosses over the hanging oak and birch woods were one highlight… with the nuthatches and treecreepers seeming like fairytale creatures.

The dippers in the fast flowing water were the other central  protagonists. I hope to go back and make some paintings on the ground… don’t think I’ll get that light and clarity for a while though.

trip out to local reservoir to keep the bird sketching hand in. I could feel that over the week in Norfolk that my sketching was gradually getting more fluent. Able to better say what I wanted to say.
This Jack snipe in the foreground was mostly hidden amongst the cut reeds, occasionally creeping a short distance and doing its characteristic bobbing… a darker, more woodcockish bird than the common snipe.  A sparrowhawk went along the shoreline at least twice and the dozing snipe looked quite wary the whole time.

Snipe (Gallinago gallinago) amongst cut and fallen reeds. Wary eyes puncture dozing oatmeal forms. Trickle of water through early mint leaves
My eyes tiring from looking for the odd one out (Lymonocryptes minimus) and studying forms down the telescope tube… all from darkened hide. Looking up through the slats at glowing panorama… reeds throb pale gold.
Their scientific names somehow add something to the catalogue of characteristics.