Down at the Hopper

Monday, 8th November 2004
Wild West Yorkshire nature diary

The house sparrows have discovered the seed hopper. Any event in the life of sparrows seems to be an excuse for a bit of a party. It certainly looks as if there has been a party. A brown mouse - I'm not sure whether it's a house mouse or a wood mouse - runs out to snaffle some of the spilt grain.

Four Corners of Horbury

It rains on and off through the day but that suits me. I've already made a dozen drawings by the local canal, near the convent and at Sowood Farm for my next sketchbook, Four Corners of Horbury and what I need to do now is put those together with the text and see how the booklet is going so far. I find that I'm already halfway through the 36 page format.

It's a luxury to be able to do it this way because my previous Sushi Sketchbooks have been drawn on location. Once they're done, they're done, and there's no going back. Horbury is different. I've got ideas for extra small sketches go with the main drawings I've already completed.

I soon get it written thanks to the diary I've kept while I've been drawing on location. I adapt the rambling style of this diary and aim for something more focussed and with a storyline of sorts. As with Dales Way Diary, I'm setting the type in Comic Sans for easier editing but the final version will be handwritten.

Wobbly drawings deserve wobbly text, something that I can't achieve, without overloading my pages with graphics, in my web work.

Richard Bell, richard@willowisland.co.uk