Just Some Quick Sketches

 I've been gifted some more art supplies, and bought some myself to add to my ever growing collection of random A6 sketchbooks. I have pencils, graphite sticks, oil pastels and also some very gothic black paper to use them on. 

But none of the fancy stuff today.

I've knocked up a couple of bird sketches, using one hardbound sketchbook and a rather limited pallete of felt tip pens I had to hand. 

I work quickly, and with all the skill and dexterity of a five year old. Nonetheless I rather enjoy doing them, thinking - stupidly - that they are like Bill Bailey's sketches in his excellent bird guide I got a couple of Christmases ago.

I present them to you now for your "enjoyment".

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 09.02.23

Bee-ing an Artist

 I keep inheriting little notebooks and felt tip pens in various places, and so when I get the chance it is fun to do a little sketching here and there.

My latest ones were done with no visual reference, and golly gee it shows! I couldn't remember how the stripes on a red admiral went, what actual colour a tawny mining bee was, and didn't have a purple pen to "illustrate" a buddleia. 

Still, I kind of like the results, and feel like I've upgraded my work to about seven year old levels, which is nice. 

I also guess drawing them makes up for not actually seeing them, these dark cold months.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 04.12.22

Now, Trying with Coloured Pencils

 This weekend has been so utterly grey and wet, there's been barely anything of note to see.

That being the case, I bought some coloured pencils and decided to have another go at sketching. Using pencils is rather more time consuming than doing big toddlerish swipes of felt tip pen, and produces a rather more subtle result - hardly a surprise!

So, I present to you a honey bee, drawn from a photo in a blog post from a couple of weeks ago. 

Looks about the standard of a ten year old, I'd say.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 06.11.22

Sketching Industry

I found myself with five minutes spare before a two hour seminar today, and with nothing else to do to kill the time other than stare out of the window, I decided to stare out of  the window anyway, and draw what I saw.

I like sketching, despite being no bloody good at it. I find doing it very quickly, and just using very bare curves and basic shapes, gives the least terrible results.

So here, in all its glory, is the sugar factory vista.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 19.12.18

Realistic Illustration

I'm no artist at all, but my sister tells me my sketches and doodles have a certain character, presumably in the same way that Stalin had a certain character. I've not done any proper sketching over the winter, largely as t's been rather colder than the last couple and my hands go purple and agonising as soon as the temperature drops below zero.

So, for your pleasure I give you these entirely lifelike and realistic illustrations of the birds I see every day.

I can only hope you like them.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCRackeredNature 16.02.18

More Neon Funs

I have a had a long day at work and a late finish organising charitable things, so I don't really have anything much to offer you, other than some more experiments in tablet scrawling.

I think it's entirely appropriate that I should be using an app designed for children.

I've been doing a lot of work on an exercise bike to rest my tendonitis - now I have a sore knee instead. Seeing as my new phone helpfully tells me how many steps I'm doing, I've been researching into how many I ought to be doing. Normally on my three days off, I go well over 15,000 steps which apparently is around 12km and represents a good level of activity.

Sadly none of that is running at the moment. I really want to look after this leg of mine, but it is very frustrating. I just feel bloaty and awful. A lot of foods just don't agree with me at the moment, the latest being granola which I love, but my body doesn't.

Maybe I should become one of those gluten free fraudulent types and go on about coeliac disease to anyone that will listen.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 23.11.17

The Invented Bird

I've been messing about with a kiddy doodling app my sister showed me on her little Amazon Tablet, and now finally I've got it on mine.

While my sister is a very competent artist, I am not, but I still love doing the odd scrawl. The stylus I've borroed off my mum is like "My first infant school pencil" in being the width of tree trunk, so that makes things even trickier for captain clumsy here.

Still, it's fun to scrawl in bright colours without getting paint all over the place. I remember making a blue tit out of papier mache at school when I was about 6 and in Mrs Thompson's class. I rather overpainted it.

That's what I was thinking when I drew this bird. That and worrying about having eaten too much haggis tonight.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 08.11.17

Danger Kitties at Work

Lot of admin type stuff today, as yesterday, but it was all done. Was doing my other comms tasks, when a facilities manager appeared with a rather odd request.

"We've got some feral kittens on the campus. RSPCA won't help as they aren't injured. What can you do?"

Our team gets all the odd miscellaneous tasks.

So, I went with him to visit a large bush at the edge of a lorry park, where he said the mother and 7 kittens were living. All these bushes are being chopped back for security reasons, and also the fact that, yes, it's a lorry park, means it is going to be unsafe for a family of cats.

I watched for a good twenty minutes, and saw nothing. But there was a bit of a whiff of cat urine in the air. Lovely.

What now? People have suddenly been talking about these cats all day all of a sudden, and several people have contacts with various shelters - the kittens could possibly be rehomed, the adults relocated to a farm perhaps - but none of them have the means to catch them.

Well, I can only see this leading to Keystone Cops type scenes, along with a lot of stress for the kitties and a lot of scratches for us. So I called up Lincoln Cat Care, who do have traps.

They are visiting on Monday hopefully.

I've been sketching cats drawing, smoking dope and being feral kittens.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 30.06.17

I am a Dog Mess Cricketer

Today was another of the rubbish ones.

I was actually expecting a day off today, the 3rds didn't have a game, but a few drops outs meant that I was drafted into the 2s for the first time this year.

Sweat was pouring off me just cycling down to our ground, let alone after doing a few warm ups. We fielded first, and after a fairly controlled start, the opposition coasted to 261 for 2 off 45 overs. We fielded really well, even my own usually stiff as a board self was good today, with no mistakes made at all.

Unfortunately against higher standard batting my bowling was rubbish, although to be fair no-one else's was very good at this point in the game apart from our two juniors. Couldn't bowl with the big follow through I need to succeed after my confidence was dented by an umpire's warning for full tosses.

Darn umpires. They are always having a go at me, I feel persecuted!

Still got a few past the outside edge of the bat, but a dead slow wicket like this was take's all my effectiveness out of the game.

When we then batted, I took as many of my clothes off as I thought I could get away with, and lay down on the boundary to do a not very good sketch of the opposite view of the ground. Meadow brown butterflies were out in the meadows, and also a banded demoiselle drifted by. The big spot however, was a brown hawker dragonfly, wings glinting brassily in the sun, patrolling the dog rose hedgerows.

After a super knock from our opener, we subsided, and muggins here after trying to bat straight and properly, managed to knock the ball onto his stumps viat the bottom of his bat.

Really in bad form at the moment, and utterly luckless. Another chance tomorrow. When maybe I won't be dog droppings.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCRackeredNature 17.06.17

Back on the Cricket Field!

So today was my first match of the 2017 season, an intra club practice match which despite the designation of our team as "The Warriors" as if we were a bunch of IPL guys being paid 100 grand a match - IF ONLY - was actually taken very seriously with everyone endeavouring to play their best.

I ended up opening the bowling for these "Warriors" as we fielded first, and despite having bowled really well in recent nets, struggled initially. The first ball of every over was down the leg side, and slow wicket or not, I was really down on pace and not finishing my action properly. So it felt anyway.

Still, I was mainly accurate and I never got hit for 4 once, which is a miracle as far as I'm concerned.

But hey, you are nature lovers, you are more interested in what there was to see around the ground. Well, we had various buzzards flying over, lots of orange tips flitting about, as well as a few small or green veined whites. When we came in from our 40 overs in the field, I headed out for a walk round the ground, seeing what I could find, among the beds of flowering nettle, red dead nettle and ground ivy.

There was plenty, only none of it wanted to be photographed. There were tree bumblebees, various hoverflies and other small buzzing insects, and a few small tortoiseshells that would only be seen by me when they rose up from the patches of dark earth where they were trying to absorb a little heat on a chill day.

I even had time to do some sketching while waiting to bat, this is an ambition of mine this year, to sketch every ground I play on. Which will probably baffle a fair few cricketers, but I try to be a renaissance man ha ha.

So, finished my sketch, and just had to time to get my pads on to go out and score 17 not out, nerves jangling as they always do when I bat!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 22.04.17

Still Life Sketching over a Pint

Not exactly Doctor Sketchy stuff, but I like doing it.

For some daft reason drawing, as opposed to photgraphy or writing, makes me feel a more cultured person. Pure snobbery on my part. Why does the ability to wield a pencil make you better?

Familial envy is another issue - everyone in my my family has a higher art qualification apart from me, be it graphic or fine.

Heaven knows what my talentless genes are a throwback to!

Si

The Walk that Became a Run

Lazy start today, very tired as ever when I finish my shift, especially when there was a lot of Children in Need running around going on - but at least the Radio Controlled Car racing I helped organising was awesome, despite not raising mega money.

So yep, my big long run was immediately cancelled as soon as I woke up too late, which seemed irrelevant in any case as I had the knitting needle pain of sciatica in the right side of my lower back, with the needles and pins down my right leg.

Grrrrr.

So, after a nice morning doing some economic and sensible shopping for a change, I went home fully intending to have a walk and a sketch when I went out; indeed I dressed sensibly and headed out to mooch over the Grange Road fields, and perhaps do a distant sketch of Hawton Church across the fields. But as I started walking, I found this to be far too slow, and started to jog a little way before walking again, running, then walking, then running all the time.

My first stop was to have a chat with this friendly, if yowly, three legged cat.

Could do with losing a little weight, this kitty was rather struggling a leg down!

So, leaving the cat behind, I crossed the fields behind Grange Road, and eventually came to the bench on which I was going to sit and sketch this view.

But I then realised by the time I was done, it would be dark, so postponed the high art for another day, and headed on, until I reached Sconce Park. I'd heard a chain-saw artist had been at work there, and found the charming fruit of his labours the moment I went in.

Isn't it great! It's going to be a bench, although I would advise against sitting on that hedgehog.

Only a kilometre to go until I reached Rumbles, and decided to have a cup of tea, enjoying sitting outside in the chill.

Bigger adventures tomorrow I hope!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 19.11.16

A Cold Day of Sketching

Well, today has been a funny sort of day, bright, cold, windy and sad.

A friend of mine decided to take their own life in the very hours of Friday morning, to the complete shock of all in the town.

So it was good to take some pleasure in the day, and get out for some time around the lakes looking for winter ducks to photograph. Of course, the shovellers had gone, and no pochard or goosander had arrived on the two lakes.

So instead, I took up position and began to sketch quickly in my odd, and out of proportion style. I really wanted to get a better sense of water than I did on my first sketch.

I hope I did.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 05.11.16

Sketching in the Wild

So, today was the day I decided to have a crack with the pencils and sketchpad I bought for my birthday, and took myself off into the wilds to draw at North Muskham Lake.

OK, it's not really terribly wild at all, but I cycled there the long way round through Little Carlton and Bathley, before riding past all the Sunday horse riders across to the village itself. I was a bit overdressed on the bright day, and enjoyed getting shed of my jacket and gloves when I arrived at the lake.

Resisting the temptation to do any cliche holding pencils up to my eye routines, I set up on the little boardwalk in the reedbed at one corner of the lake - if I say they were reeds (and horsetails too) now you won't have to struggle to identify them from the drawing.

I can't draw at all, although with my shaky hands, I draw better than I paint. Clumsy clumsy clumsy. I thought the best thing was to go at at quick like an impressionistic sketch, like the lady in the 70s Flake advert.

This also meant I didn't have to make much of an effort with the trees and water, which I also find impossible.

I sent the results to my sister, who did however say they were acceptable and as a proper artisdt,  she'd know.

That's the only reason you are seeing it now!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 23.10.16