Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady - January

♫Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady♫

You're listening to the theme of the 1984 TV series on. . . .

I recently bought the DVD of the series.  It consists of 12 episodes, one for each month of the year, just as Edith Holden's nature diary.   Here is the trailer for the series. . . .

                           

After watching the episode for January I went to my art desk to practice drawing in the style of Edith Holden.  I'm using this little book to help me. . . .

But first I had to rearrange the desk.  It had been in front of the window on the right.  I decided it needed to be between the two windows. . . .

Then Poetry started meowing incessantly and I needed to see what she wanted.  When I came back I found Gabriel chewing on a cardboard CD cover.  How did he get that?!  I'd left it on the bed....Poetry must have knocked it to the floor for him.  Then the phone rang.  I tell you, once I did sit down to draw I was really in a bother.  I think someone must have been very critical of my first drawings as a child because getting something on paper is such a struggle for me.  I turned on some music, shut the bedroom door and finally started.  I had to erase A LOT, but this is what I finally created by following the sketch in the Learn to Draw book. . . .

Not TOO bad.  But now I had to draw it again on watercolor paper.  In my eagerness I skimmed the directions that followed in the book and outlined the background when I was only to outline the duck and drake with the pen before watercoloring it.  It took the rest of the afternoon to apply more paint, let it dry, and then playing with it some more to get it to where I'd show it to you. . . . 

I hope by doing a post each month on my progress I'll be encouraged to practice, practice, practice.  Each month I'll try to duplicate one of Edith's drawings from her book and post it along with more information on Edith Holden's life.  In the meantime, here is a link to another Blogger's post on Edith Holden's book.  She has provided the text and paintings from the book for the month of January.

Here is a short biography on Edith.  I found several Blog posts on The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady.  One in particular stood out to me because she was using Edith's book, also, to get her daughter started on keeping a nature diary.  I liked how she ended her post:  "When it comes to nature study, the point is to just do it."  That is the advice I'm going to hang on to as I move through the year with Edith Holden's lovely nature diary as my guide. . . .Just Do It. 

Addendum:  Sharon has sent me the link to another Blogger's year-long review of the companion book to The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady.  It is called The Nature Notes of an Edwardian Lady.  I'm including the link for January here and will include it each month as we go along--the reason being, this Blogger, Bunny Mummy, lives in the East Midlands of England and has wonderful photographs of the countryside Edith Holden knew so well.

I'm also adding one more drawing/painting for January that I did today.  This one is from the Diary itself.  I did the sketch first, then drew it again on watercolor paper:

I only did part of the painting.  It was interesting to me that I could not see where I'd gotten the proportions wrong until I colored it in.  And then when I took the photo I noticed a few more things.  They say half the art of drawing is seeing.  I also need to work on my "washes" for the background.  I'm gaining confidence, though--that's the other half of the art of drawing!

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Take Joy!