Ducks in biro

mallards
Originally uploaded by wherethewolvesare.

At the end of our road there are open fields, and when we get a wet spell, like this last week, they can get pretty boggy with some patches of standing water. I like this because it's the nearest I'm going to get to waterside living for the forseeable future and it always attracts some mallards within a couple of days. Winter ducks on the doorstep - my idea of heaven (I'm easily pleased!). The previous best is four but this weeks' two were just fine.

A technical note - this line and wash sketch was drawn with noneother than a 20p black Bic biro. It gives a nice even line and it would appear to be water resistant too. Expect to see more like it.

Before the storms

drain near tadcaster
Originally uploaded by wherethewolvesare.

Although it seems a long time ago, what with all the stormy weather since, Saturday was a lovely winters' day. A cold, clear day and a watery light you only seem to get in winter. Out in the fields near Tadcaster, this little coot was minding its' own business in a drain.

Sshhh!

gulls at parlington
Originally uploaded by wherethewolvesare.

A quiet scene from a quiet week. The distant calls of black-headed and common gulls were the only sounds. Their numbers are building steadily in the roadside fields each day. The seasons move on a pace!

Kite flying

Red kites - they're ace! A six foot span of auburn majesty, tail twisting and flicking as if to show that an apparently effortless flight really does need a bit of skill and precision.

This kite lifted my spirits on the way to work. Cheers, I needed that.

The first frost

thorpe arch
Originally uploaded by wherethewolvesare.

We've had the first taste of winter this week, just a small one but definitely there, with the first frost of the year closely followed by a second a couple of days later.
We were out at Thorpe Arch at the weekend. A slightly odd place, a small village but with a trading estate (we were looking for a bed for Nathan), a prison, a large British Library building and the Leeds United training ground! Best bit though is the fields surrounding all this. We saw a very nice wintry mixed flock of starlings, lapwings and golden plovers (another first of the season for me). The goldies' bellies flashed bright white as the flock went up, spooked by a kestrel or probably less.

The wanderer returns

I will do my honest best to blog more regularly, I promise. But fear not, dear heart, I have not been idle. Just preferring to sketch than sit at a computer, I've been enjoying the simple pleasure of drawing what is around me. None of the scenes sketched are more than a mile and a half from home. Quietly watching the seasons change, from late summer to this wonderfully mild autumn. I implore you to do the same

An Indian Summer?

boston spa
Originally uploaded by wherethewolvesare.

Is it too early to be an indian summer? Does October have to be warm as well? Well, by UK standards this has been a very warm September, normally we'd have the winter coats out by now. Thoughts of global warming aside, it's been lovely. In the garden, the californian poppies are still flowering and the choisya and the bachelor's buttons are flowering for a second time. The solanum and the fuschsia are still impressively in flower too, but they'd flower till November in Alaska I'd suspect.

For all that, there are still signs of the coming autumn. The mists every morning this week evoke the season and the increasing number of gulls collecting on various patches of grass and ploughed earth are backing it up. Also, I haven't seen a swallow or a housemartin in over a week.

Yesterday, we went to the park in Boston Spa and this sketch (in Derwent drawing pencils) is the view into the distance between the trees. The rolling farmland to the north east of Leeds has a very English feel about it and is certainly looking it's best at this time of year.