More Grasshoppers

I have been looking at winter colours today and while I had the paints out made a few more very quick sketches of the grasshoppers:

Sketchbook Crickets and Grasshoppers

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. 

The cricket came to mind the other day and I thought I would make some sketches.
I am also planning a series of prints of singing, chirping, humming things for our woodland project.

 

 

 

Sketchbook sketches A5 sketchbook

There may also be a small grasshopper book, as book number three for this year. Not quite sure of the form yet but it might be something  like the eel book.

 Finished small eel book  A case bound concertina print.

Woodpeckers and galls

As I was walking through our village Jubilee wood this week, I came across some galls in one of the small oak trees.  As many of the trees are still only 6-8 feet high you get a good view of the lichen, galls and other beasties who live there  and the bright almost luminous colours of some of the lichens in the sunshine are just wonderful.

 

These galls look like chocolate truffels stuck onto the branch but they definitely aren't for eating. The larval stages of the gall wasps induce the plant to make these abnormal growths called galls  and our native oak trees are host plants for more than 30 species!

I can feel a print coming on once I've done more research into these little creatures but in the meantime I'm working on a lino print of woodpeckers. Our peanut feeder has attracted a greater spotted woodpecker in this colder weather and it's a pleasure to see him feeding there even though the squirrels are very good at getting in first.

                                         Pen and ink sketch of Greater spotted woodpeckers for lino cut.  21 x 15 cm

Next stage......transferring to a block and start cutting once I've decided on whether to make it a reduction print or to use a block for each colour.  Watch this space!

Eel print trials

I am playing with all sorts of printing methods at the moment and wanted to make a simple concertina book to practice a bit more simple bookbinding.

Here are a couple of plates cut from card.

Some print trials with different weights of ink .

And simply folded. More experiments and cover possibilities to come

Eel Sketches

Sinuous, slippery and lovely shapes.

 

pencil sketches 5.5x 8 inch sketchbook

Eel do have teeth….awesome !

Eels…

I am completely fascinated by these slippery, mysterious creatures and their extraordinary life cycle. They are one of the subjects in my very long, 2015, to-do list. I have drawn some eels before, long ago to illustrate Philip Gross’ poem “Sargasso”. I had been thinking about another interpretation of the poem for a small book. 

They were common around the Fens in the past, and after a steep decline in the 1980’s I read their numbers are recovering. I ate smoked eel in Amsterdam. It’s a good nutritious food. More on eels as food, as glass eels, elvers, as mighty travellers and as strange, twisty, dark and magical things to come. 

The door to 2015

Happy New Year and may Janus the god of beginnings and transitions be good to you. It doesn't seem possible that Val and myself have been doing this blog for a year but it's been a fascinating challenge to produce work each week even though the Muse is sometimes hard to find.

We're already into the first month of the year and although the birds are feasting at the bird feeders and the squirrels are inevitably fighting with them for the peanuts, most wildlife is keeping as warm as it can out of sight and  it takes a brave soul to be prepared to stand outside sketching the red kites and occasional hare that we see on our dog walks.  So this week I have been keeping warm myself and turning back to my favourite subject of all.....our little lurcher Poppy.

Through an interest in gilding, I was searching through some medieval pictures on line and saw one from the Duc de Berry's Book of Hours. My eye was caught by the hound in the corner of the picture ....

 

Of course, I couldn't help comparing the rather stylised image with some pencil sketches I've done of Poppy

 

 

 

 

 

There's definitely a close affinity to those medieval hounds though, don't you think? No doubt she lives in luxury in comparison but because of the all round wonderful being I think she is, she deserves it and is my beautiful beast to start 2015.........