A Cute…ah no….a Coot Chick.

The coot chicks are quite odd looking and not exactly cute. Dark and fluffy in the main but with an extraordinary punk hairdo. Long yellow hairs make a halo round its red and orangy head. It’s mostly bald around its eyes and beak.

 

 

Sketchbook Chick with its yellow hairs and red bald face..but I guess its Mother loves it.Watercolour 6x4 inches

A couple of years ago I wanted to return to using scraperboard. It’s a great medium for black and white and I had illustrated various things in the past using the technique. That was some time ago, when you could get wonderful professional grade white scraperboard from Essdee. Sadly that is no longer available and what they sell now is thin and yellowy with a greasy texture. However in the UK that is all that is available. “Ampersand” scratchboard from the USA is better.

 
The scraperboard and sketchbook

At the time I was trying to get used to the new stuff and made a few trial pieces including this little coot chick. I had abandoned it because of the horrible quality on the board, but today I thought I would get it finished. It’s really a test piece, so perhaps not as well thought out as it could have been but I am going to give scraperboard another try.

I was equally fascinated with its spiky hair back then!

Coot Chick  scraperboard 4 x 5 inches

Canal Coot

I am just back from a wet but wonderful trip to Amsterdam. In between the showers, the museums, the galleries, the cafes, the bars and the markets we did a bit of canal side strolling Near the Rijksmuseum, sections of the canal have been planted with floating platforms of water plants, just a few feet from the bank. This is apparently a scheme to provide nesting sites for coot, moorhens and other canal birds. It seems to work.
This coot was particularly annoyed by the arrival of two ducks and rushed into the water  ferociously chasing them off. I did not get an action shot but here she is returning to her nest.

She was not over impressed by our presence either because she is, of course, protecting a chick or two. I could only see one peeping above the foliage.

Coot chicks with their red spiky featherless heads are not the prettiest “Ahhhh” factor baby birds, looking more like mini vultures,  but I am going to see what I can do this week. Some sketches, maybe a print.

The coot I see here at Grafham are shy and rather secretive. Their feet are wonderful.We see them scuttling across the lane sometimes but on the reservoir shoreline you can see them slowly  searching for food with their strange hesitant gait. 
This is a sketch from last year…

I am very fond of coot. More sketches etc to come.

Under the Skin 4: Lucy’s Skull & a Tiny Corset

Generally I like to find things for myself but have not been lucky enough to find a deer skull. Then my good friend Lucy found one and kindly gave it to me. It is fabulous. I have been wanting to draw it for months so I am very glad now to have the opportunity. 

 

Sketchbook studies A4

Watercolour start with model

Lucy’s Skull

Watercolour study on Not paper 8 x12 inches

 

Gouache study. 8 x 10 inches.

The Tiny Corset

One last study of a small broken skull turned upside down. I just caught sight of it on the floor as it was lit by the low angled sun, with its beautiful long cast shadow. It took a while to draw as it’s very detailed. As you draw things you tend to see connections, repeated organic shapes and similarities to other forms. It hard not to if you spend 2 hours staring at something. The more I drew it, the more it looked like a great design for a corset. A tiny fairy one.

 

Upside down skull. pencil 4 x 2 inches

I have so enjoyed the bone drawings this week and I intend to make some more finished studies of the skull.  Thank you Lucy!

Under the Skin 2: The Long Bone

I found this long bone near the reservoir about a month ago. I think it’s a leg bone from a muntjac deer. We have quite a few of these curious little creatures round here.When we first arrived we saw a decomposing body up on one of the tracks. I didn’t then have the presence of mind to drag it back home. I might now :) Stubbs would have.

 
Pencil A4 sketchbook

I had not really looked at it before today and initially  liked the sweeping line of the outline but then I saw the glimpse of the beautifully detailed interior.

 

Pencil drawing is 15 inches long,

This is the bit I was most interested in…

Detail of the above drawing..

More than interested really. I hadn’t really intended sketching anything but the bone shape but the labyrinthine structure is too good to leave at a small study. It is the most fascinating world of overlapping fine bones..layer on layer. I made a more detailed study.

 

The scanner is a blunt tool for pencil work and strips out many of the subtle tones and I think there is more depth to the original. I could have continued for many more hours, refining and finding more and deeper layers but I drew what I could see with the help of a small magnifying glass and ran out of time.

Labyrinth…pencil 8 x 6 inches

I was not sure what this bone was, so had a quick search and found the very excellent Jakes Bones. I am learning so much from his site!

Under the Skin 1: An Incomplete Dodo

Bones lovely bones. This week I am looking at some bones, the underpinnings of the bodies of many Beautiful Beasts, and fabulous structures in their own right. This incomplete Dodo is from the Hunterian Museum. See more about the Dodo my blog post on Pencil and Leaf.

I liked its assembled nature.

 

Raphus cucullatus
skeleton

Object Type
Mounted dry bone

An imperfect mounted skeleton of a dodo (Raphus cucullatus). The bones are from several individuals.

This mounted skeleton of a dodo is a composite from several individuals. The bones were from a large collection excavated at La Mare aux Songes in Mauritius in 1865. The first hundred or so of these bones were shipped to Richard Owen and from these he published his monograph on the osteology of the dodo in 1869. Further collections of bones were sent to England and were sold by auction. The College Conservator, William Henry Flower, purchased a series of bones for £10 from which he was able to construct this partial articulated skeleton for display.

 

Dodo sketches pencil A5 sketchbook

"A Certain Sleepy Perfection of Contour”

What can this be?.. Why, a pig of course!

“To begin with, pigs are very beautiful animals.  Those who think otherwise are those who do not look at anything with their own eyes, but only through other people’s eyeglasses.  The actual lines of a pig (I mean of a really fat pig) are among the loveliest and most luxuriant in nature; the pig has the same great curves, swift and yet heavy, which we see in the rushing water or in rolling cloud. “

GK Chesterton liked pigs.. this is from “Rhapsody on a Pig” published in the The Illustrated London News, 8 May 1909.

I think it would be fair to say that G K Chesterton himself had some of those very same luxuriant contours.
And he is so right about the pigs. Those gorgeous soft curves and that wonderful spread of weight as they lie down….

 Sleeping pigs…well, most of them.

Pencil on A4 sketchbook

Skeleton Sketches

I do like to understand a bit more about the structure of pigs so spent some time looking at the skeletons of pigs and wild boars. The high vertebrae at the top are Interesting at the top..more so in the boar which accounts for its “crest”. There is so much info about animal skeletons muscles and structure on the internet.. Fabulous!

Pigs… Beautiful Pigs

My partner Chris started writing a blog about pigs, Salute the Pig  a little while ago. He likes pigs but also likes pork so as a part time project we look for local ethical pig breeders and pork producers. Happy pigs are our first requirement.
So far we have met very happy pigs and very caring pig farmers. It has been a delight and we are looking at the different breeds of pigs as we go.
I have been doing some sketches with an idea of something more finished later in the year and to date I have sketched The Gorgeous Curly Coated Mangalitzas,  see blog post: "The Complete & Utter Gorgeousness of Pigs Ears" with their amazing curls.

 

Check out those ears!

The gentle and rare Lops. See blog post “The Big British Lop Pig”

And the feisty Duroc. See blog post “A Gorgeous Ginger Pig”

Sketches in pencil, pen and ink and watercolour in A4 sketchbook.

You can read much more about these pigs and pigs in general over on Chris’ blog

It’s time for the next pig, so for my Beautiful Beasts week I am going to be looking at the very smart Saddleback Pigs and pigs in general.