Before I moved, I worked for several years in agriculture. It was hard work, but I have fond memories of that time. My son, by chance, also loves the outdoors and working with his hands. I love gardening together
A vibrant, hand-drawn marker illustration featuring a rustic wooden cabin perched on the edge of a tranquil lake. The foreground is filled with glowing green lily pads, leading the eye toward rolling green mountains under a bright, cloudy sky. This piece captures the essence of a peaceful summer escape and the beauty of lakeside living.
The European Goldfinch is a striking small finch with a distinctive red face and black-and-white head. Its wings are black with a bright yellow wing bar, while the body is mainly buff or light brown.
During the breeding season, the bill of male and female goldfinches is white, but at other times of the year, it is marked with a black tip.
Female goldfinches are very alike in appearance to males, and visually, it is hard to tell them apart from a distance. At close range, the sexes can be distinguished by the size of the red facial patch, with the females not extending past the eyes as it does in males of the species.
Juvenile goldfinches do not develop adults' red, white and black facial markings until the late summer or autumn after hatching. Until this point, they have streaky buff-brown markings on their heads. Info: Birdfact . com
A Female Pied Flycatcher Ficedula Hypoleuca…
The Pied Flycatcher is a summer migrant to the UK.
As the name suggests, it feeds on flies that are caught by making a quick dash from an obvious perch. There are around 40,000 pairs in the UK each summer. The Pied Flycatcher is a small unmistakable bird that often sits with drooped wings. It spends its winter in Africa.
Identification:
Adult
Adult males and females share the same plumage pattern but are different colours.
Male Pied Flycatchers are small and chunky,13cm in length and are black and white all over, they are quite unmistakable.
The upperparts are black and white, tail is black with white base to outer tail feathers, rump is a slightly paler, back is jet black, wings are black with white wing patch (tertials)
The nape and head is black except for small white patch above the black bill. Chin and throat white, extending to form a half collar.
The entire underparts are white, ie; chin, throat, breast, belly and undertail coverts. Legs, bill and eye black.
Females are brown versions of the male although tail is dark, no obvious white patch over the bill and the collar is less distinct. #piedflycatcher #brd #birdart #birdartist #birdsketch #birddrawing #bampidraws #birdlovers
A vibrant, hand-drawn sunflower illustration featuring bold marker strokes and a rhythmic, blue-sky background. This piece captures the energy of a summer day through an impressionistic lens, blending warm yellows and oranges with cool, textured blues.
A vibrant, hand-drawn urban sketch capturing the quiet magic of a black cat wandering through a Mediterranean-style alley. Featuring warm orange and yellow hues, loose marker strokes, and a whimsical atmosphere, this piece brings the warmth of a European summer right into your home.
A vibrant, hand-rendered standing strawberry illustration featuring rich textures and expressive marker strokes. This piece captures the organic beauty of summer fruit through a modern, illustrative lens.
Introducing “Home Is Where Your Head’s At” :-)
Starting a new sketchbook as we leave the summer and head into the autumn again… with things like Halloween and Samhuinn rearing their heads it’s liable to sway what goes on here as it always does!
This is a digital rendering of a drawing I have recreated several times. The original was a doodle done in high school and has since been done as a painting, a tattoo design, and now as digital art. My inspiration was 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', classic cartoons (Woody the Woodpecker), and pinup art styles.
To draw is to notice.
To notice is to pause.
And sometimes, all it takes is a barefoot boy in a camping chair, chasing the drips of a popsicle, to remind us what it means to be here.
This is Popsiclence—a sacred kind of focus.
It’s where observational drawing leads us: out of the swirl, into the now.
And in that now, we heal.
Mark Twain (1835–1910)
In the 1870s and ’80s, the Twain family spent their summers at Quarry Farm in New York, about two hundred miles west of their Hartford, Connecticut, home. Twain found those summers the most productive time for his literary work, especially after 1874, when the farm owners built him a small private study on the property. That same summer, Twain began writing The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. His routine was simple: he would go to the study in the morning after a hearty breakfast and stay there until dinner at about 5:00. Since he skipped lunch, and since his family would not venture near the study—they would blow a horn if they needed him—he could usually work uninterruptedly for several hours. “On hot days,” he wrote to a friend, “I spread the study wide open, anchor my papers down with brickbats, and write in the midst of the hurricane, clothed in the same thin linen we make shirts of.”
Whether or not he was working, he smoked cigars constantly. One of his closest friends, the writer William Dean Howells, recalled that after a visit from Twain, “the whole house had to be aired, for he smoked all over it from breakfast to bedtime.”
- From Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey
“Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.”
― Mark Twain
#dailyrituals #inktober #MarkTwain @masoncurrey
Weirdly enough, I never used to feel bothered by winter. A sign I’m “getting on a bit” as they say? I’m 32 come April, not 102 for feck’s sake! Whatever the case, roll on spring and general warmth, long overdue I have to say…
