Bishopdale

Summer Meadow-Bishopdale
Reduction Linocut. 270mm x 180mm.

A typical view in the Yorkshire Dales. A buttercup filled field in dale floor with its attendant field barn. Backed by further fields climbing away up the valley sides to the higher moorland above.

Bishopdale is one of the smaller dales which runs north from its head on the northern flank of Buckden Pike to its meeting with Wensleydale at West Burton.

Huddersfield Birdwatchers Club Report

Common Buzzard. Pen and Ink Scraperboard.

Turnstone. Pen and Ink.

Kingfisher. Pen and Ink.

Grasshopper Warbler. Pen and Ink.

Wood Warbler. Pen and Ink.

The latest report (for 2006), of the Huddersfield Birdwatchers Club has now been published. With a cover design and some illustrations by me. A selection of which are shown above. The report is available from the Huddersfield Birdwatchers Club, details of which can be found by following the link in the Natural History Section on the right.

More Holiday Pictures

Robin singing from the cottage garden. Pencil.

Another quick two minute sketch in my small sketchbook. Landscape seen from a pub carpark just outside St Clears. Watercolour.

Dryslwyn Castle. Watercolour.

Red Kite mobbed by a Carrion Crow. Pen and Ink.

The view across the Towy Valley to Llanstephan Castle from Ferryside. Watercolour.

More from the Towy Valley

Painted Lady Butterfly. Watercolour. A very worn and washed out looking individual with pale colouration.

This was a family holiday so drawing and birding had to be fitted in as opportunity allowed. Much of the work was done in the early mornings or evenings.


Buzzard. Pen and Ink.

Raven perched in the top of a dead tree in the field across the road from the cottage. Pen and Ink.

Immature Peregrine Falcon circling over Dryslwyn. Pen and Ink.

The road to Dryslwyn Castle. Watercolour and Pencil.

I keep a small A6 sized sketchbook in the car which is small enough to slip into my back pocket when we are out. It comes in handy when waiting around outside shops or sat waiting in carparks. This drawing was done in about two minutes and the watercolour put on later in pretty much the same time.

Dryslwyn and the Towy Valley

Paxtons Folly from Dryslwyn. Watercolour. Sketched in a light drizzle which accounts for the funny blotches in the sky.

We have just got back from a week long holiday in the Towy Valley near Carmarthen in West Wales. An area I know well as I spent my student days here. This was my first visit back in over ten years but the landscape is still very much as I remembered it. We travelled down through the hills and valleys of Mid Wales in glorious sunshine and then woke on the first morning to a day of rain.

The view from the kitchen window of our cottage. Drawn at 7pm in the evening after the day long rain finally stopped. Watercolour.

The second day broke with better weather and these Ravens tumbling a welcome in the sky over the cottage. Pen and Ink.

Red Kite. Pen and Ink.
Drawings of a bird watched sailing slowly over the village of Pontargothi.

Southerness Lighthouse - Linocut

Southerness Lighthouse. 6 Colour reduction Linocut. 257mm x 170mm. Edition of 5

Got the final colour printed, although lost three prints along the journey. Two of them through sloppiness on my part in positioning the paper in the registration marks before printing. With the third print I got distracted and left the paper on the inked block too long and ended up sticking it to the lino! I did cheat with the railings though and brushed them in afterwards with a No 1 watercolour brush.

Fourth and Fifth Colours

Managed to get the fourth and fifth colours down fairly quickly. Firstly a grey brown colour for the wet sand left by the waves and then a dark brown for the rocks below the Lighthouse. Only black to go now.