but first, the weather
I am feeling so much better now that the temperature has halved, and the rain and clouds are back. While I was volunteering at Charleston during the heatwave last week, I was able to tentatively say “Yes it’s a bit hot for me” when asked whether I was enjoying the weather, and then commiserate with the select few of my colleagues when they said “Oh me tooooo I hate it!”. It’s funny how it’s completely acceptable to struggle with the times of year when it’s cold and dark and wet, but if you say “I have Seasonal Affected Disorder during the summer when its hot and bright and the daytime never ends”, everyone thinks you’re crackers.
A marvellous moth
The warm conditions were good for insects, and my friend found a newly-emerged Privet Hawk Moth under her lilac tree, where last year there had been a caterpillar of the same, so we have reason to believe that the moth could well be the same individual. I love hawk moths, and having seen my first Hummingbird HM this year, I am now on the lookout for Elephant HM caterpillars on the willowherb and fuchsia in the garden, two favourite food plants for these beauties. To celebrate Kate’s new lepidopteran arrival, I painted her a picture from some photos she sent me:
More webinars
Following on from the Gardening for Moths and Butterflies webinar, I attended a Zoom all about Crab Spiders, hosted by the Biological Recording Service and a PhD student from Newcastle Uni. It was fascinating, and I took some notes on A3 as before.
A new course
Part of the reason for my recent obsession with webinars is that I have started a new course, where I am learning about graphic recording and how to add this skill to my portfolio. I have always loved posters and infographics, but I love drawing quickly and in a scrappy manner, which is far more suited to graphic recording than infographic illustration, and I also love learning new things. The course runs through June, and I’m hoping to launch my graphic recording services in September. In the meantime I am going to practise as much as I can, even though if I were being hired, I would start with a lot more information rather than having to think and organise on the go. It is still all good stuff to get used to: listening and drawing and working out how I want to work. Many people work digitally but I tried my daughter’s iPad yesterday and realised within minutes that analogue is how I work best – unsurprisingly!
The main areas I need to work on are coming up with visual metaphors as these attempts all have far too much writing, and also working out layouts and information hierarchy. It’s really good fun though and the course on Live Illustration is well-written and fun to do.
Meanwhile, the birdwatching logbooks are ticking along, and I am also involved with some other illustration projects but those are grant-funded so still up in the air. Have you got any new ventures at the moment?
