A Summer Sketchbook - An Exhibition

During the spring and summer of 2009 I was employed by the RSPB to monitor the breeding birds of the north isles of Orkney. I was living out of my campervan; no family ties, kids neither demanding attention, nor dog walking to do, I was alone in unusual lands ripe for exploration. The work entailed visiting the breeding areas during the early morning and at evening time, thus leaving the bulk of the daylight hours for watching the birds. And for drawing them. Occasionally I would seek out new, unexplored areas, but more often I would return to my survey sites and observe my subjects at a more leisurely pace and from a less intrusive distance. This is when I got to see the birds just ‘being themselves’; I really started to get to know them just a wee bit. I also accumulated further data which contributed to a more complete assessment of the birds’ breeding status.

When the opportunity to stage an exhibition was offered, I turned to the many sketchbooks full of scribbles, written notes and colour studies. Re-visiting these images, sometimes several weeks after the event, allowed me to take a new and fresh look at the drawings and the birds which I had portrayed. In some cases I felt the original drawing which I had made in situ was relevant and I reworked the piece only slightly (if at all), adding little to the source image; other pieces, although derived from an encounter with an individual bird or experience in the field, have benefitted from being able to glance back from distance; the salient elements of the experience distilled and refined somewhat. Almost all of the paintings are annotated with the notes made at the scene of the original observation, placing a particular event in time and location. This is my way of interpreting the visual delights of an Orkney Summer.

Here is a selection of works destined for the exhibition. Incidentally, I am going to be publishing a limited edition commemorative catalogue of the exhibition. It will be A5 landscape, 32 pages in colour and will be limited to 50 copies signed and with a unique inscribed vignette. If anyone's interested and would like to reserve a copy, they will be £12.50 +p&p.
Please email (tim.wootton@tiscali.co.uk) to order.

Gulp – doesn’t time just whizz by?!
Already halfway through 2009 and barely an update to the blog (sorely missed, I’ll bet) but, unlike previously when I had been trapped in the studio, this time is because I have been out-a-doors most of the time. My contract with RSPB was renewed just at the point when time was plentiful but cash was, as ever, in short supply. So the surveys start but almost simultaneously, we get the opportunity to take on the lease for a shop on the local high street (well, the only street, really!) and we then find ourselves having a full-time job each and in addition having to set up a new venture and provide stock for it.
So, many hours of painting slates, framing prints and nicking paintings off the walls at home and we open the shop. For one week.
Then we have to take a trip south to see mum (already scheduled) and manage to miss the most potentially lucrative week of the year; Easter.
Anyway – stuff happens and you just have to get on with it, don’t you?
Working for the RSPB this year is somewhat different as it entails plotting up on the North Isles for several days at a time. Luckily we have recently invested some of our overdraft in an aging motorhome (more of which elsewhere, at another time) which gives me the perfect base from which to work and also a haven to return to. It also functions perfectly as a mobile bird-sketching hide; something which added an extra reason for me fetching the van all the way from Glasgow one wintry night early this year.
Anyway the trip to see mum worked out well – particularly the return jaunt up the west coast; camping in the van at Loch Ness, Fort William and Ullapool (three highlights of many scenic eye-poppers). The Ullapool stop being spent at the campsite at Ardmair – a wonderfully evocative place, more so for me because it was here that I first ever came to Scotland – and fell in love with the place irrevocably. A few things had changed in the intervening 26 years (!) but the place still holds all the mystique and romance that I felt when a wee nipper. We saw an otter in the bay, too – another old friend from west coast trips. Talking of old friends, whilst at mum’s she ferreted out an old painting that I did many years ago (1987 to be precise, when I was 24 years old. Jeeps, I can’t even remember being 24 years old!). It’s of sanderlings and I know for a fact that I had only ever seen one before – and that at Broomhill Flash, Wombwell in South Yorkshire. Anyway, pride aside, here it is;

Back in Orkney and straight into the RSPB job. Always wonderful to get out to the isles, just occasionally being in the wrong place at the wrong time causes a lot of heartache. I’ve never seen a snowy owl in the wild and when one turned up in the county I was buzzing. But the bird (a young female) spent several weeks playing with my head; it was seen in two different locations not ten minutes from my home in Stromness several times over a period of four weeks, and each time I succeeded in missing the bird. It then turned up on the Island of Shapinsay – not only one of the islands I am working on as part of my contract, but also the island we lived on when we first moved to Orkney. And where was it seen, this be-speckled white northern beauty? Sitting on an old fencepost, in a field at the farm that I used to bloody-well own!!!! Talk about taking the Michael!
Eventually, however, I received a call. The call. Snowy owl showing well in a field in Holm (pronounced Ham, up here). Only 25 miles but starting to get dark and I know Sally’s not going to be happy with my suggestion that I abandon the kids’ bathtime, and the evening meal, erm, and her and go and look at a bloody bird!.
“Fine – just GO!” she suggested. “But if you don’t effing see the effing thing, don’t effing come back!!!” she quietly advised.
I exchange the Freelander for a teleporter and zap into the field within half an hour (don’t forget, not only does Orkney have no motorways, there isn’t even one metre of dual carriageway in the county, so travel can be a tad laborious at times). Not tonight though. And there’s the owl. But it’s not the little minx that’s been toying with my birdy emotions all the while; nope, it’s a pristine male bird, doing all he can to look like a white feed-bucket beside a square concrete strainer.
A very pleasant and most satisfying 45 minutes of drawing later and one happy chappie on the road back home. No dinner, I grant you; but fulfilled in every other sense.

So, having got a ‘life-tick’, birding was bound to be straight forward from here-on in. Yes? Nope!
Just one more species was to send my dials spinning before the end of May – and this one was a really old friend; one that I saw only ever-so briefly 30 years ago, it standing in a ploughed field, 200 metres away from me, somewhere near Hoyland (I think – the memory is somewhat shaky).
I’m on the north isles – Shapinsay to be quite precise (yep – wrong time again) and the phone bleeps with a text ‘dotterel in South Ronaldsay’. ‘Jayzzusss Feckkkk-ittt’ I scream, frightening the curlews. By the time I’ve done the surveys and caught the boat back, these birds have long gone – probably mincing about on some upland tundra hilltop enjoying their curiously inverted summer nuptials.
I write them off, thinking I’ve done without them for thirty years, I can manage another thirty; no bother. I then ‘do the math’ as our Am. cuzzins say and image me-self at seventy-six, chasing a bunch of fancy plovers across a wheat field. Hmmm.
But, once again, the phone goes into sex-mode. Top birder and all round good-egg Paul (who runs the bird alert service in the county), knowing my personal plight with these birds has arranged for a small party of seven dotterel to conveniently land in an open field, right by the airport in Tankerness, and here he is giving me the tip-off.
What he’s unaware of, of course, is the fact that I’ve been out all morning and half the afternoon, wasting ‘quality-time’ and fecking-expensive fuel looking for – erm – dotterel.
Aaaarrrgghhh! I replace the handset very carefully, knowing I am in grave danger of ripping the whole communication device off the wall.
I glanced at darling wife whose face told something of a story, so I sulked for half an hour, at which point she told me to “Piss off and don’t come back!”.
Well, I thought, this an opportunity too good to miss and with her 'blessing' I sped off to the airport. No fecking sign - Brrastid! Quick call to Mr Higson who told me to go to the house with the washing (?!) I did and was there allowed wonderful access to their land and superb, if distant views of the birds.
I realise they are fairly settled, and are having difficulty leaving the site ‘cos of the wind, so I settle down for a session. I hear a cardoor slam and three very perky dotterel-spotters in high spirits tramp across to me 'Ssshhhhh!! - shut the duck-up' - I rather irritably snarl - but too late and the birds are offski. I sit jaw-clenched and white knuckled as apologies spill forth, but I decide to pack up, go the house to offer my thanks and phone Sal to see if I would be getting any dinner.
“They're back”, Ian has chased me to the car. I phone Sal back and plead for a little more time. Strangely the line goes dead. Hmmm, must be out of battery, I think - so go back to the dotterels for another hour and a half, during which time they’re harassed by a cock lapwing (who had a nest approximately four miles away); they attempt to continue their migration, but the wind just keeps blowing them back, so settled back down in the field. They were still there when I left at six o'clock.
I thought I'd better check if I still had a marriage to go home to. The jury's still out . . .

A few field drawings and a ‘finished’ piece from the same;

Some other stuff from ‘the field’ over the past few weeks;

Stuck In The Studio - No Bad Thing!

I haven’t had much time to get out and draw over the past month or so. The adverse weather combined with the extreme dearth of daylight hours has meant that any artistic endeavours have been studio-based. Fortunately I don’t have to go far to find inspiration as our house is a waterfront property with red-breasted merganser, eiders, shags and gulls swimming past the kitchen door.

And the weather is always interesting. Our property, like many in Stromness, has flooded in the past. When there is a combination of extreme weather conditions; high tide, low barometric pressure and a strong south-easterly blow amalgamate to push water into the Haven where it has nowhere else to go. The water rises and the breakers come rolling in. These are tense times and we watch both the sea and the clock to check when we are highest risk and the subsiding tide and/or a reduction in wind strength are greeted thankfully. Most of the time though, we can just enjoy the natural spectacle of wind whipping whitecaps of spray and foam onto greeny-grey peaks of saltwater; the gulls hanging and driving against the force of the air, the waterbirds seemingly oblivious to the incongruity of the climate.

Two of my best friends have been pontificating over what should adorn their newly refurbished living room wall and, having finally made a decision, I was summoned to the ‘Old Island’ of South Ronaldsay to discuss a panting and take some photographs. A favourite place is Harrabrough Head and I make my way across the fields to the clifftop. I was amazed to find over a thousand fulmar already on the cliffs and pairing off – this is the first time I’ve seen fulmar here this early, although in the Western Isles they are known as Christmas Gulls because of their propensity to return to the breeding cliffs early. It was a gorgeous day, a stiff breeze as sharp as a knife coming off Scapa Flow and a light of Narnian brightness. The walk along the cliffs to The Cathedral served to remind me of why I moved to this remote part of the British Isles and my quick snaps for landscape reference were adequate for the job.
All over Christmas and into the New Year I worked on the large canvas and finally delivered the painting to Terry & Ingrid just a day before he was due back at sea fishing the waters around Rockall, Iceland and Shetland.



I have been invited to contribute to a Wildlife & Sporting exhibition at The Jerram Gallery, Dorset so a few ideas for paintings which had been lying dormant for a while have had a bit of life breathed into them. One in particular was a divergence from my usual work which, since I moved to Orkney at the beginning of the millennium, has been almost entirely based on encounters with nature up here. In our previous lives, Sally and I had the run of a tenanted 30 acre smallholding and one of our favourite aspects of the property was the moor; an area of rough upland pasture, giving way to banks of fragrant gorse then birch, oak, sycamore woodland where chicken-of-the-woods grows. There are badgers, three species of deer and, of course, foxes.
With the painting “A Heavy Fall: Red Fox” I was confronted with the problem of harmonising an essentially warm-coloured subject (the fox) with the predominantly cool hues of the snowscape background. I also wanted to create a sense of silence and stillness within the painting. There are in fact very few rufus tones in the fox’s coat; the effect being created through contrast between the grey-blue background.



I have also been asked to make a couple of sheets of sketches for a client in Holland. These are always fun to do and they allow me to go, through my imagination, back to the woodlands of Yorkshire where I was brought up.



The long-eared owl drawings have also been re-visited and I decided to make a larger, more involved painting. I was particularly interested in making simple marks on the canvas and not getting bogged down in superfluous detail. The resulting painting is a study in concealment. I have made no attempt to hide the owl, per se, but have tried to use the owl’s natural cryptic plumage to resist an immediate reveal.



But back closer to home for the next three pieces.
The shelduck painting is one which I thought I had completed in 2008 but I realised there were certain issues which I felt I had to iron out before exhibiting the piece. I’m fairly happy that the painting works ok now.
Eiders are fabulous birds and I’m lucky to see these from the house on a daily basis. We have just had to endure another bout of winter storms and keeping our 200 year old house warm is expensive, but the effect this weather has on the artist’s psyche is immeasurable. I’m constantly inspired to try and capture something of the power and awe these winter storms have as well as showing how wonderfully adapted the birds which live in this habitat are.

The fulmar painting follows a similar theme. A fresh, face-stinging morning walk with the dog leaves my ears ringing and my finger-ends throbbing with the returning blood, but I am straight onto a canvas and the basic colours are blocked in within minutes. The whole process of making the painting takes a couple of days, but the sensation of being on the ocean with them is easy for me to recreate in my own mind’s eye - I just open the kitchen door and take a buffeting walk on the pier.

The year seems to be rushing to a close at an incredible rate. Just a couple of weeks ago I was recounting some of the summertime events – now I find myself grateful for the brightly glowing coals in the open fire, whilst starting to reflect on the year - and the year’s birds.

Orkney is a pretty small collection of rocks situated off the North coast of Scotland but we are graced with some of the most fantastic landscapes and open-sea vistas. And because of our geographical location, erroneously migrant birds regularly find themselves castaway on our not-so deserted islands and, although we have only a score or so regularly active birdwatchers, we also have recently developed a rather effective networking system linking sightings and locations. Anyone with access to the internet can receive an alert whenever rare or unusual species are located. This means two things; folk interested in birds get to know what’s about and where and ‘finders’ have an efficient way to tell others of their success. It breeds a kind of self-propelling birding euphoria.

We have had some really notable birds throughout the year, including a superb white-billed (yellow-billed) diver which, not only has spent the whole summer here, but also appears to be settling down for the winter, too! Rustic and Cretschzmar’s Buntings; rare pipits, warblers and wagtails; and a smattering of gulls and waders. I also found a splendid dark-phase honey buzzard.

But the birds which really caused a stir throughout the county were the waxwings. Certainly not rare, but they are very charismatic these little visitors come from the north. It appears they have had a decent breeding season in Scandinavia and hundreds of these pinky-grey bohemians have descended on and percolated through the British Isles. My first encounter was when a flock of eighteen birds came off the sea and into Stromness, almost taking my head off in the process, their high-pitched ringing-trill calls notifying me of their approach seconds before I saw them. A couple of dozen stayed for a few weeks and their confiding nature meant that I could make close-up field studies, often without the aid of binoculars.

Another uncommon visitor also turned up within a stone’s-throw of my house. A breathless phone-call alerted me to the whereabouts of this nocturnal hunter, snoozing away the last of the daylight in an ancient sycamore just fifty yards from my doorstep. A swift scan of the lower trunk revealed the bird, cryptically marked though it was. Although the last time I saw one of these was several years ago at Denaby Ings, South Yorkshire, the first thing I did having located the bird was set off back down the path to the house to collect Sally and the Nikon scope. Sal doesn’t waste much time bird-watching (unlike some in the family) but she is fanatical about owls, and this is one species she’s never seen – long-eared owl. We stayed and watched the owl, me making a few thumbnail sketches in the near-dark, until the bird had finally had enough and departed its roost for the nocturnal hunt.
Although the bird didn’t return to the same tree the day after, I managed to relocate it in a small copse just a couple of hundred metres further east. Over the next few days I had several memorable encounters with this terrific bird and had the opportunity to make some drawings of it. This series of sketches culminated in a small and expressive painting, inspired not only by my experiences with the bird, but also because it happened to be Sally’s birthday and, as usual, I had to rely on my last-minute ingenuity rather than conscientious forward planning to get me out of potentially hot water!

The realisation that winter is really upon us was finally compounded this week with several inches of snow falling and, in places, staying for a day or two. Purple sandpipers are scuttling along the foreshore in company with starlings (surely waders in disguise) and turnstones. The resident eiders have recently been joined by the long-tailed ducks, having returned from Arctic places of reproduction, and are frolicking around the bays of our Isles; male red-breasted mergansers are bobbing to each other and their mates and goldeneye drakes blurrily shine turquoise-white as they dive in the cold, clear waters around our pier. A first winter Iceland gull appears to be just as at home at the harbour as it was in Greenland, where it was hatched as a chick less than 20 weeks ago. This northern youngster also looks to have settled into this new habitat just as well as the white-billed diver did at the beginning of the year.

End of Summer

Our annual holiday is always timed carefully.
Sally usually combines it with collecting something from 'South' (which could mean anywhere from John O'Groats to Adelaide) and so this year Sal and I took the kids to Yorkshire to see their 'other' granny - my mum, Hazel.
I never do bird lists, but I thought I'd mention a few of the raptors; from the 1st two hours of the drive (northern Scotland) were; Sparrowhawk (with prey - starling), common buzzards, goshawk, osprey (x2), kestrel. I didn't get any of the usual 'Orkney' raptors (Short-eared owl, merlin, peregrine or the harriers) as I got the morning boat from Stromness harbour - a drive of approx. 2 minutes from the house, straight through the town.We spent two days in South Yorkshire then travelled across to Manchester where we were collecting our new Ebay purchase, (curtesy of darling wife's internet habit) the trailer tent! Fortunately it was in better than perfect condition and we merrily slooshed up the M6 back towards Scotland. We camped in Ayr where there just happened to be a Race meeting on (lost all my hard-earned, but had a great day), then a further two in Glen Nevis - stunning. Cadjoled the whole family to walk up part of Ben Nevis but as soon as the pub was spotted, we all agreed the midges were too much and made a hasty detour. Amazingly, however, following light refreshments they decided to continue skywards, which we did for another hour or so. Great walk and an extremely steep descent brought us back along the riverside walk to the campsite and 'home'.
Had 2 red kites on the last leg, north of Inverness and also picked up a road-kill common buzzard which was the day's piece on the board.

Back from holiday!
And to find a rather pleasant surprise on the doormat. A letter from Wildscape Magazine informing me that my painting
“Red-throated Divers Nest-Prospecting” has WON AN AWARD! I am thoroughly chuffed.
I am very lucky having an, er, 'understanding' family regarding these unfortunates which end up on the slab, but actuallythe kids are really gruesome and love to see the dead stuff up close. They even spot bundles of feathers and fur from the car - beats I-Spy anyday!

And here is a slightly re-worked painting of the original that won the award.

This is an unfortunate fulmar which I collected from near the Standing Stones of Stenness. I kept it overnight but it had sadly died by the morning. I made a study of the bird both as an artistic statement and for reference at a later date.

Incidentally, here are a few notes on handling dead birds for artistic study purposes:
If they look manky - leave them alone. Most of what I pick up are road kills meaning they were (probably) in fairly good health up until the point that they, er, weren't. They will have (depending on species and individual) a number of mites, lice and other hangers-on which will remain with the host until they find another one. These are pretty specific critters requiring very specialised habitat, so don't worry about them - unless you happen to be dressing up in your best Fulmar-feather outfit - most are very slow-moving and can be cracked with the blunt end of a pencil or brush as they hit the white backing paper (which I like to use as it helps me see the contours and tones better than 'neutral' backgrounds. Reverse side of old wallpaper is good. One type of parasite which lives on rooks is a broad winged flea-type of thing and they are truly gruesome. They appear fom out of the plumage, do a quick once-over round the corpse and disappear back into the feathers - uuuuurrgh! I don't do corvids in the house - they stay outer-doors.One final thing. When using dining table - make sure it's not you sitting where aforementioned specimen was lying previous to setting table - or you could disinfect the table, if you're being especially fussy!regarding catching 'stuff' from dead birds - I suppose the main thing is - don't eat them or suck them. You should be ok then.

Just a word about Fair Isle. Wow!!I'm pretty much used to islands, and I'm pretty used to getting to them by boat, but the trip didn't disappoint. Travelling via the Varagen - one of Orkney Ferries North Isles boats, the first 2 hours were in blanket fog, but this eventually cleared somewhat and, nearly 5 hours after deprture, we squeezed through the seething gap and into North Haven. Arriving to a full pipe band (we brought our own) the islanders welcomed us marvellously. Considering there are only 68 men women kids and oaps, the 30 or so that greeted us was a fair showing, and the rest were busy organising other bits and bobs up at the hall - great start.A quick wander up South Gavel, an adjacent cliffside to the Havens, and into puffin city. I nearly broke an ankle as the ground gave way - a result of energetic subterranean rabbit and puffin activity, virtually honeycombed the whole clifftop. Fair warning, though. A few pages of rubbish sketches and I decided to settle down for a landscape - the light did not behave, though and changed constantly. I made an effort, anyway.Up to the hall and a quick discussion with Holly from the Bird Observatory. Desperate news - their terns and skuas virtually failed before they'd even begun - Christ will this ever change up here???? Anyway, back to the remaining birds - bonxies (Great Skuas) absolutely everywhere and gannets doing really well, so not all gloomy stuff. Went out and spent the remaining time getting bonxied. Found a beautiful pair of Arctic Skuas though and, besides the pale and dark morphs, they also have an intermediate form - these happened to be they! Georgeous birds. Travelled back the way we came - chucked about in an eight-metre swell for a half hour then fairly easy going all way home. Had 11 storm petrels as rocket fly-bys over a period of 30 minutes, so that was fun. Unfortunately no cetaceans at all - probably a tad choppy for decent views. Going back on the very next boat to leave here!!! (that's next year).Today I felt inclined to re-visit the white billed diver. I tied the trip in to collecting a crossbill carcass from a pal for study, but my plans changed as I picked up a road-kill great black-backed gull. It would be very smelly in a fairly short time so the crossbill was refridgerated and the gull got the once-over.
Always sad to find dead birds but I always take the opportunity to study them in a bit of detail.

Only slight downside (birding wise) was the fact that up here in sunny Scotland, it's already the summer holidays, so wherever I go, the kids come too. We have another very special bird up here at the moment – white-billed diver! The diver is actually around the island where we used to live, so it was fairly easy to persuade the girls that we ought to go and see some of their old friends and have a picnic on one of our favourite beaches. I used the beach time to make a colour sketch of a favourite plant - oyster plant. After the beach fun, it was off to Barrier 4 and the white-billed (yellow-billed, or whatever we call it now) diver. I found the bird fairly quickly - but it was a long way away and required a drive of a couple of miles to get any decent views. By this time the kids were playing up, so I had a five minute 'watching only' spell and then away.
Sal had the day off so we took the kids to Birsay for a meal out (hot dog from the green van!!! - scrummy) and whilst they were rockpooling, daddy was observing old friends and making a few drawings. Unlike much of the tern colonies across the isles, this little one with 80 ads has good numbers of growing chicks and food seems to be coming in regualrly too - fingers crossed.Today I had to make a trip to the Old Country - South Ronaldsay (amazingly on the very same day that a rose-coloured starling and white-billed diver were present!) although I have seen both birds recently (well the R-c s was a diferent individual, but you know what I mean). The last viewing of th ediver ws fairly brief and just a voyeur trip. Today's was meant to have a bit more purpose to it and I managed to blag a gaff sitting on an old girl's beach, fairly cool temps and watched 'our' bird for a good 3/4 of an hour.Added a bit of colour back home.

We have had a couple of nice birds in the Isles over the past week. Had a couple round today to look at some paintings. Whilst they were here, I mentioned there had been at least 2 rose-coloured starlings in the county and that I had just missed the one in Stromness because I had to take the girls to the dentists - grrrr! They had been gone for precisely 12 minutes and I decided to get the washing up done. A bit of a commotion on the neighbours' ridge-tiles made me glance up to see a little line of 4 sparrows chirrping and tail-flicking - but I couldn't see at what. So I leaned over the sink a bit and there he was. I don't see many of these from the garden - so swiflty out with the scope. He stayed quite happlily for 3 or 4 minutes. Just long enough for a quickie or two.

Have been working on a large (full imperial sheet) watercolour. It's a celebration of one of my favourite species – Arctic Terns. I have been toying with the idea of having the picture a rainy one. I was trying for the clash of climate, you know, rain on a sunny day, but I'm not sure this pic is the one to do it on. There's already quite a lot going on and maybe this extra element is just too much. I finally decided to leave the rain, but there's a suggestion that it has only just left the scene, one or two drops still loitering.
This little colony of Arctic Terns means a huge amount to me personally. Orkney is world famous for its seabird colonies, however over the past few years they have suffered tragically, with not even a single tern chick being raised at all last year. This year every colony across the Isles has failed again! - except for this one. This tiny colony of approximately 80 adults and well-growing chicks stands like a bastion against the dismal news across the rest of the Isles. We're all hoping at least some of the chicks survive.Hence 'After the Rain' - not only in the climatalogical sense of the phrase, but also in the 'I Can See The Sunshine After The Rain', philosophical sense.