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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

OK ... deep breath! These are my efforts (1 Viewer)

this is really good! The dappled light is wonderful. Hope you get better soon, sounds painful!

Thanks Nick - was a bit halfhearted and not the best of field sketches. Done rather slapdashly on thin white paper doesn't help. A few generous doses of Ibuprofen has taken the edge off, so might make a day of it tomorrow weather permitting.

Was it Van Gogh who ended up painting everything with a pink tone because of some eye defect later in life or am I thinking of someone else!
 
I see a blue tit has been sneakily added since I last looked, very nice it is too. Can't remember if Van Gogh went all pink, though his last painting is a superb piece of wildlife art (if a little sinister). Monet had eyesight problems towards the end, can't remember if he went all pink though!
 
I see a blue tit has been sneakily added since I last looked

lol - slipped in another - G*d I must have been feeling ill this morning!! Anyway have set up my piccalo on a little table at the bedroom window so tried a more detailed one through scope at same time to see if it made any difference to my field drawings - it did, I realised I could actually draw looking down scope, detailed plumage - and the scanner completed ignored it (was lucky, this little fellow hung around for 10 minutes! - if I can get optics sorted, eventually (hopefully) I can produce a decent detailed painting straight from the field - in case any one is wondering, the bulk of sketches posted here were using binos or naked eye - Ignore the crappy paint work btw folks - couldn't be bothered to mix and it came straight from 3 tubes and onto the brush - just doodling really!



Have been googling, many of the Impressionists produced their best work with deteriorating eyesight at end of their lives - all is not lost!!
 
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Another has appeared, and I really think it looks a treat, ok, it's a doodle, but it's lively, well composed, and above all, unworried - which I suppose is what I like most about paintings, the ones that appear without any fuss or bother, just doodles that look great.
 
They are all rather special Deb, and I even quite like the rather 'lairy' colour, it adds a style element.

Nick's comment is an interesting one, I'm guilty of overpowering my birds with too much detail and 'worry'.

Woody
 
Was it Van Gogh who ended up painting everything with a pink tone because of some eye defect later in life or am I thinking of someone else!

I think it is Monet you have in mind. Look at the later waterlillies.

Hope you're feeling better.

Joanne
 
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Thanks all for your kind comments - just realised it's getting longer and longer to go through all these threads now, so apologies if I've been missing some recent work from people.

Thanks Joanne - will go to Dr's next week for a 2 week supply of painkillers for Poland!!! (Getting a little nervous about the trip now)

Closer to home and back to 'normal' (must have been on transcendental drugs yesterday!) - a few sketches from today - getting easier the more I do. Lovely morning on the beach with plenty of obliging HGs of all age groups. There's an old geezer who sells fish from a stall down there and so I had a ready subject group who flew up into the air and squabbled every time a decapitated fish head was chucked their way. Spent a very pleasant 10 minutes with a cup of coffee on Hove Lawns watching Crows hopping and jumping around on the bowling green.

Didn't bother with scope or binos this morning - too much to carry at the moment
 

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They are just great - birds we see all the time and can overlook- but you really do them justice. Very inspiring- It makes me want to persevere with my own field work - itching to get out again.
 
Very, very expressive work, I love the herring gull with its tertials blown about, so simply done, and yet perfectly done. I love the crows too, I can feel their staccato movements.
 
Very, very expressive work, I love the herring gull with its tertials blown about, so simply done, and yet perfectly done. I love the crows too, I can feel their staccato movements.

Greenfinch is superb for me, the bill and eye are really keenly observed, well done. Crows are great too, full of character.
 
Deborah

I am simply amazed at the rate of progress you are making with these, the structure, posture and pose etc of the last Greenfinch and Herring Gull water colour are spot on.

In my eyes they are faultless ..and you know how picky I can be;)

Matt
 
I can feel their staccato movements.

lol! Just looked at that one again and it looks like the local Line Dancing class for Old dears that they have on at the Church Hall on Weds mornings - need a larger sketch pad :'D

Thanks Buzzard - Funnily enough I actually thought the Greenfinch's eye/bill was the strongest bit of sketching out of all of today's scribbles too - I'm really glad you picked up on it.

Cheers Wendy & Matty ;)
 
Love this latest series, but I have to say that Greenfinch is definitely something -- quick and scrawly and yet absolutely spot on, always my favourite sort of bird rendering!
 
Deborah, really special stuff. Love the play of light on the second Gull piece.
agree with everyone else. Its great to see your confidence transfering onto
the paper. Just keep going.
 
Cheers Jomo (where have you been!), Mabel & Andy

The 'confidence' definately derives from getting the practice in with fieldwork Andy as you rightly pointed out in your thread, and think it's coming - sloooowly!

Probably better for me that I don't try too hard with painting birds at the moment - it just gets too messy unless I'm religiously trying to produce a completely accurate bird - so a very quick (5 min) sketch from the drawings/memory yesterday - without peeping at any photos or guides:
 

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Love the character of the gulls and the greeny's head spot on.
this crow suddenly popped in Ireally like it a lot
 
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Love this last crow, sometimes it's great not to worry about the plumage details and other such stuff, what you've achieved here is the character of the crow completely unrestrained by the image we have in our heads of how to identify one (if that makes sense). You're being very creative indeed at the moment.
 
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