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.........

 

Last Moon Prints.

It’s just two weeks to go until we have to hand in this first project. What Christmas?  

        

    

            

Six of the monoprints, some reworked and with relief printed additions: image size 4 x 6 inches

Over at my main blog Pencil & Leaf I am getting back to regular blogging in the New Year. I will be writing more about the whys and wherefores of  the Moon project and there will be another project coming up.

As Sue said in her last post we are away now until 2015 when Sue will be starting again with another Beautiful Beast.

Meanwhile Happy Christmas to you all.

Happy Christmas!

At this time of year it seems that peace and quiet are hard to come by for us humans but the beautiful beasts just carry on as normal. Keeping warm and finding enough food are their priorities and when you see how people behave in the Christmas sales it makes you wonder how we've got to the top of the food chain!

Thank goodness we have our furry, prickly  and feathered friends to help keep some sense of sanity and although my hedgehog friend should really be fast asleep at this time of year, I can't help imagining him [or her] rooting amongst the leaves for a tasty morsel as the large cool moon rises up behind them.

 

This is the first print on the press rather than a hand printed image and I'm pleased with the result.  There's lots more work to do on the image but as the Christmas cards have now been written and the presents [almost] wrapped, I can turn my thoughts to everyday life in the world of the Beautiful Beasts which is a wonderful place to be when the Christmas madness has taken over the 'real' world.

 

Happy Christmas to anyone who has been kind enough to read our blogs over the year, and we hope you've enjoyed them as much as we have.  We're taking a break for a short while and are thinking about how the blog should progress but in the meantime Happy Christmas to you all and hope you like this hand drawn image inspired by the 'Angel of blessed silence'.........so apt at this time of year!!

 

 

 

 

Best wishes for Christmas and 2015 from Val and Sue