Tag: drawing

Pastel sketch from a quick snap, Bamburgh Castle bathed in morning light

Bamburgh June morning, pastel 2024

I’m visiting Northumberland for the first time, in a sunny a warm week in June. Setting off for an early morning walk on the empty wide beach beyond the dunes, itself a special landscape of long grasses, wildflowers and this time of year, many orchids.


Bamburgh Castle dominates the view in silhouette as we approach, the clear morning light is spectacular. Today is one of those occasions where you can take a quick snap from inside the car – there is no-one around – except dog walkers and bird watchers. I used the photo reference a week later to produce a pastel sketch on Fabriano paper, aiming to illustrate the light that bathes the seen in morning glory.

The sound of the sedge warblers singing from the tops of the bushes in the dunes goes hand in hand with this picture, I hear them when I look at it.


In the evening, the light from the West gives the castle a completely different look, though no less spectacular. Well worth a visit.

Bamburgh Castle evening

Wash that dust

It’s late July in Abuja. The tail end of the rainy season washes the red dust away from the balcony of N0.9d. The near rocky hills and new developments, almost all called something Plaza, are obscured by low cloud and heavy rain.

9d-balconyThe swallows and swifts are not deterred for long. When the sun comes out, it’s blinding and hot. The Variable Sunbirds flit quickly to and fro on the flowers in the garden, the fire finches find seeds on the ground in the yard. The African Thrush sings loudly very like the European song thrush, with simple but fluid repeated phrases.  I started the Moleskine sketchbook on the ‘plane, and already made some notes on the suburban birdlife for later.
The generator needs fuel. Again. Heading down the two flights of stone clad stairs after dark by phone torch, a gekko stays ahead of me the whole way and disappears under something somewhere on the ground floor.  “It’s cockroach season” someone says.
They’re probably the biggest insects I’ve ever seen. Maybe too big for a gekko to tackle.
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Note-taking for later id….

 

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View from the balcony, number 9d.

After the rain, a girl walks down the road selling plantain carried effortlessly atop her head. No takers yet. The security boys from neighbouring houses emerge onto the street.
There is laughter and chat, and as everywhere else, a lot of thumb action and staring at smartphone screens.

view-from-9d-balcony-rSo, here we are again. Another rip roaring, roller coaster high energy ride for a few weeks through this fantastic country…just hope I can keep up…

Slow line, quick wash

Here are some line drawings from my sketchbook where I’m using a sepia coloured felt-tip pen to draw the scene. Quite a slow, deliberate process compared to my usual freer pencil drawings, and with a couple of these I found it useful to add some watercolour to ‘key in’
some of the spaces.

This first spread shows two drawings of a country road not far from home. I was interested in a graphic, linear shorthand to describe forms and textures. No need for a colour wash here.
country-roads-sketchbook

Cat’s Hill Lane, Ludwell.
I spent the Easter break with family in Dorset. I’ve driven past this winding lane countless times over the years and only now decided to stop and draw it. The couple walking their dogs came from behind me and strolled down the lane. I waited until they reached the shed before sketching them in. I added some colour to the verges and meadows, including the far field where the cows are grazing.
cats-hill-lane-ludwell

This drawing is of a small stream winding its way through a copse in the spring sunshine. The bottom of the stream here is muddy but in other places it is stony and moderately fast flowing. In many places the water is only two inches deep, but there are some deeper pools where small fish find a decent living. I edited out quite a lot of ‘tree bits’ and settled for just enough to describe the overall look of the spot.
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At the end of this small copse, the stream emerges and cuts across the green lane before
falling through the roots of a tree in a mini, noisy waterfall and creating a deepish pool, before continuing on through the hedgerow. I got the watercolours out for this one.
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The marble, the scorpion and the kingfisher

It’s a sunny and hot morning, and we are off to Oke Okanla First Baptist Church
in Osogbo, which stands proudly at the crown of the hill in a south central suburb.
Our task is to supervise the tidying up of Toyin’s mother’s grave, Patience Aduke Lawoyin. It is a large white marble affair with an impressive headstone, situated at the perimeter wall at the far end of the plot down a gentle slope, slightly overgrown with traditional gravestones dotted here and there, many broken and with much litter.

1st-baptist-churchWhile we wait for our helper to arrive on the back of a ‘machine’, we start collecting old drinks cans, pieces of broken tile and general litter from around the site into an empty bucket sized paint can, itself a piece of litter! I’m grateful for my hat, and already thinking we haven’t brought enough water. A Woodland Kingfisher perches patiently on a wire across the road, and later presents a trophy to its mate,trilling loudly withy much excitement, on a horizontal branch of a tree in the grounds. I couldn’t make out the prey item, but guessed at a small lizard.

service-doorOur helper arrived and proceeded to start cleaning the marble with detergent. Standing close to two slabs of concrete lying near the wall and in bare feet, he suddenly jumped back and stabbed the ground with the scrubbing brush, impaling the small scorpion that had just stung him on the inside of his foot! This was a problem. Fortunately, there were some church members on site supervising the building of the new church nearby, and one of them was an expert in herbal remedies. In no time at all he had come down to the graveside holding a leafy branch, and after spitting on the affected area and scraping it off with a knife, he rubbed the leaves together with the venom from the scorpion’s sting forming a paste, which he then rubbed vigorously onto the affected area. The active ingredient was on the back of the leaves he explained, and that all will be well in a short time, and indeed it was. How fortunate that this healing plant was growing in the grounds!church-grounds

We quickly realised, as we lifted all our gear up off the ground and checked it over, that we had just been picking up random bits of rubbish pretty carelessly and not thinking at all about the potential danger…and so thank you, Patience Aduke. I may have freaked out if it was me that was stung! Many locals know the various medicinal properties of local plants, stings and bites are not uncommon, but it did provide a bit of drama. It seemed a long walk back up to the church pavement, looking carefully where each step was placed, together with a birder’s eye on the kingfishers. Somewhere amongst all this the sun had gone, behind clouds rolling in for another heavy thundery shower.kingfisher-and-roller

 

Osun sacred groves

Osun sacred groves are a UNESCO world heritage site, dedicated to the ancient gods
of the Yoruba religion set in a small patch (75 ha) of tranquil forest where the founders
of Oshogbo were said to have settled some 400 years ago.

We were accompanied by Kasali Akangbe Ogun, who together with the Austrian artist Suzanne Wenger and a team of local artists, restored the site from the 1960’s onwards, creating fabulous sculptures and shrines to various Yoruba gods and goddesses.

After the rain stopped, the birds started twittering, and we positioned a wooden bench under a gap in the tree canopy above, though occasional drips from the leaves landed loudly from upon high directly onto the drawing…watercolour in the rainforest, in the rain…doesn’t get better than that.

igbo-ifa-osun-main-entrance-smNature reclaims all that is hers and the sculptures benefit greatly from mosses and litchens, finding a home on the rendered clay works. Adds to the mystery and spiritual energy of the place.

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osun-sculptures-smAs the patch of forest is a sacred site and therefore protected, there is much in the way
of wildlife, though difficult to see, and there are a group of quite tame Mona monkeys
that come to the entrance cabin to be fed bananas by visitors and staff.

osun-monkeys-sm1I tried to capture these monkeys very quickly before we left, constant movement and life energy…if only there was more time!monkeys

A house in the country

After two days in Abuja, we drive Southwest to Osun State and the town of Oshogbo, where my hosts for the trip have their family home. It’s a ten hour drive, made worse by some bad potholes and some crazy drivers. Some driver’s decisions seem so wreckless they become comical, but the many overturned heavy lorries and abandoned vehicles serve as a sobering reminder that safety is held with scant regard here.

For almost the entire journey the highway is flanked on both sides by forest and bush, beyond the small scale agriculture and the odd village and settlement, and (frequent) petrol stations.

petrol-stationA pair of hornbills is often seen flying across to the high trees, and the occasional hawk or small eagle is seen wheeling in the middle distance. The raw sienna coloured soil fits perfectly with the lushness of the greens, and the moody grey skies hide the sun but not the humidity.

We arrive after dark, the streets in Oshogbo are still busy with trade, and even with their kerosene burning wicker lamps, I wonder how anyone can see quite what they are doing.

lines-at-dusk1The call to prayer from the nearby mosque wakes me at five, the cockerels are crowing at six, and the gospel singing is rousing at seven…but there is no intention to stay in bed, there are new things to be discovered out there.

Stepping outside, the first thing you notice are the agamas. They are literally everywhere, so much so that I don’t remember even taking a photo of one. I did do some sketches though, and I was intrigued by their slight air of superiority, always one eye on you, knowing as they do that they are always going to be one step ahead of any predatory move by a slowcoach human!

 

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dogs

After rain

In this watercolour the sun shines low in the sky. All is in shadow and at the top of the hill you can only really see bright light reflecting off the wet road, a small area of grass and shrubbery bathing in the sun’s intense warm glow and small specks of white light bouncing off of ivy leaves. There is no sound except for water flowing into the nearby ditch from a raised pipe.
gt-leighs-against-the-light-jan-19-2014-watercolour

More sparrowhawk action, this time at the bottom of the garden in the crook of cherry branches. This male was busy with his (obscured and unidentified) kill for twenty minutes or so, giving me the chance to attempt live sketches using binoculars. This was a bit awkward as I had to memorize what I was looking at and then draw it, then look through the glasses again. From the top of the page down you can see how I eventually got something lifelike and reasonably accurate… drawing around an abandoned sketch
of a sunning woodpigeon. Needs must.

pluckingprey
Pheasants have a reputation for being a little dim, or slow, but maybe they’re just
cautious. This male dawdled across the road a few evenings back in between the four wheel drives and the farmer’s pick-ups. Slowly enough for me to have two attempts at capturing that swagger that says “I’m handsome and in control…oh wait, I could be roadkill here…best move it along…”terling-jan-17-2014-sketchbook-pencil

Raptor express

Rainham Marshes along the Thames, a dull Sunday afternoon. A peregrine surveys the marsh from high up on a pylon, with his back to the streamlined, 16 car Eurostar trains that whoosh by every few minutes. The ducks and waders roost on the banks of the lagoons, and a light pink blush washes into the blue grey cloud cover. As dusk approaches, the distant lights of industry become prominent towards the city
behind me.

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Sometimes you’re in the right place just at the right time. On a dull, wet and breezy January afternoon I parked up in a gateway to quickly sketch this ivy covered old oak, where the lane gently slopes away down the hill. A sparrowhawk came gliding past a few inches above the ground, following the centre line of the lane and on down out of site, and perhaps to suddenly fly up over the hedge to catch some unlucky small bird by surprise. I had been there barely five minutes.hawk-gliding-down-the-lane

Harbinger

These are interpretations of some false colour images of C2012 S1 Ison, currently speeding it’s way towards the sun at 2 million miles a day, having entered our solar system for the first time.

comet-2-oil-pastel-on-tinted-paper
Seems a bit weird to draw something that is traveling that fast on an A4 sheet with just a few pastel strokes. Comets have been seen and recorded for centuries, sometimes spookily called harbingers of doom. Said to be an icy body that, when passing close to the sun, heats up and loses gases to form the “coma” and tail, sometimes visible without a telescope if bright enough.

With this blue version, adjusting the colour values of the scan resulted in this
cool 3d type effect… Something that might work well on a large scale, I settled for this modest size canvas
for now. Ison may never come back, but it’s just amazing to me that all this stuff is out there, beyond what we could ever hope to hold in our hands.
I once introduced a friend to vegetable gardening, walking in the woods, taking photographs, the pleasures of seeing, not just looking at nature. In her open minded and naive way she used to say “Isn’t nature great!” How right she was.

falsecolour-comet-acryliccomet-oil-pastel-on-tinted-paper

Recent Sketches

Although this is a pencil sketch, the pattern of light and shade through the oaks,
with greens and oranges setting off the blue road were the attractions here.

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Something very satisfying about all the shapes and textures in something like this.
Drawn at the end of the afternoon, still mild with some weak sunshine, while House
Martins wheeled above, catching flies on the wing on their way South.

woodpile

A view across the Thames at Rainham Marshes. So much potential in places like this.
A quiet and still late afternoon, sun almost gone. Watercolour over pencil drawn
while best bud Roj Whitlock photographed.
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