Never put Indian ink in a fountain pen, unless… the pen is a Pilot Parallel the pen is a safety pen the ink and the pen are both modified to form a system the pen has been specifically designed to use Indian ink Pilot Parallel…
Continue reading Fountain Pens for Indian Ink
A fountain pen is defined as a pen with an internal reservoir of liquid ink. If you’ve ever used a dip pen, you can appreciate the benefits of this deceptively simple idea. In general, it seems to be only those pens with a direct line…
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Greenham Common has a variety of habitats, notably a large expanse of heathland with ground-nesting birds, lizards and rare orchids. There are also the fenced-off bunkers (once home, at disparate times, to American Cruise missiles and the D’Qar resistance in Star Wars), a business park…
Continue reading Nest Boxes – SOLD
Kaolin is another name for china clay. It is widely used in the paper industry as a a filler or as a surface coating to improve whiteness, texture and print adherence. It is also used as a filler in some white paints, to extend the…
Continue reading What is kaolin-coated board?
Indian ink was invented by the Chinese (who later traded it to India) while the Europeans were still playing with rocks in the neolithic age. The ink’s black colour comes from lampblack, traditionally made from the fine, sooty residue from oil lamps. It’s essentially a…
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Níðhǫggr is the dragon that gnaws at the root of the World Tree, Yggdrasil, in Norse mythology. One of the suspended roots of this ash looked, from this angle, a bit like a dragon. The dragon seemed to be munching on the base of the…
Continue reading Níðhǫggr (Nidhogg) – SOLD
I was delighted to be invited to contibute to this exhibition, which runs in conjunction with Open Studios West Berkshire and North Hampshire.
These beeches are by the entrance to a local wood, and are the only beech that I have seen there (it’s mainly sycamore and birch, with some ash). I think they were probably part of a hedge, although the rest of the grown-out hedge line…
Continue reading The Fellowship
I’ve drawn this tree before, but I didn’t include the thing that originally drew my attention to it: the “No dogs” sign suspended in its branches! Roadside 12″ x 16″, ink and hybrid acrylic on kaolin-coated board £330 (framed)
Trees are remarkably good at growing amongst rocks. It’s surprising that such a big plant can manage to thrive in such an inhospitable sort of place, but it seems that tree roots are very good at growing down through fissures in rocks and accessing underground…
Continue reading Persistence – SOLD