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

Some of my wildlife art (1 Viewer)

Sorry Rodrigo, I've not yet commented or even welcomed you to the best bit of BF yet. Very remiss of me. So; 'Welcome to the best bit of BF!'

"This is becoming my new obsession and I'm enjoying it"

I think we all know that feeling!

Mike
 
Thanks Ken, Halftwo and Mike!

Indeed this is quite enjoyable. I'll try to post new stuff as often as I can. This has been "one of those weeks" where work is not being very art-friendly. I haven't had the time to finish that heron painting.

It's already late around here and I still have to read a paper that we're supposed to discuss early tomorrow at work. I was so bored with it that I started scribbling and copying a photo of a Gouldian Finch that is hanging in front of my desk. I thought I should show it to you :)

Now I should read the paper and stop making it birdy :brains: :stuck:
 
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Thanks Tim and Phil!

I haven't been drawing/painting much lately because of too much boring work, but now that I have a bit more spare time I'm on a quest to try to get familiar with watercolours... and I find that challenging. Here is a picture of a chaffinch that I tried last night, and I thought it was looking ok, until Itried painting a background with some "special effects"... not a good idea; i kind of ruined it.

This morning I tried to "draw" a mallard with watercolours (only with two kinds of brushes; no pencil sketch) and I kind of like it, but I find it difficult to blend the colours. I'm used to blending and mixing on the paper when using pastels or colour pencils, but this is something totally different. I guess I just need to keep trying :smoke:
 
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Thanks Tim and Phil!

I haven't been drawing/painting much lately because of too much boring work, but now that I have a bit more spare time I'm on a quest to try to get familiar with watercolours... and I find that challenging. Here is a picture of a chaffinch that I tried last night, and I thought it was looking ok, until Itried painting a background with some "special effects"... not a good idea; i kind of ruined it.

This morning I tried to "draw" a mallard with watercolours (only with two kinds of brushes; no pencil sketch) and I kind of like it, but I find it difficult to blend the colours. I'm used to blending and mixing on the paper when using pastels or colour pencils, but this is something totally different. I guess I just need to keep trying :smoke:

I doubt that many people who are just starting watercolor would dare to start a painting without a pencil sketch first. But I think you'll find that you learn much quicker that way, at least in terms of learning that watercolor is a medium of its own and not one for just filling in sketches. I think that there may be something a bit off with the foreshortening in the mallard but I'm not sure. It just seems a little too small on left side. But far more important to me I think is all that you've been able to accomplish with watercolor. There's a lot of subltety to it and it looks like you're a natural with it.

Keep it up, when you have the time;) I see a lot of promise here.
 
Thanks a lot for the encouraging comments, Ken!
I think that there may be something a bit off with the foreshortening in the mallard but I'm not sure. It just seems a little too small on left side.

You're right! The duck looks all weird after waking up from my nap ;) The foreshortening is off indeed. I need to learn how to make the right depth effect. I had a problem mixing darker values because my small watercolour pocket set doesn't include grey/black, and therefore I was just mising random colours until it looked "right". But I'll keep trying.

Here's a picture of a squirrel in pastel I painted some time ago; It's been buried in a sketchpad for a couple of years. I couldn't resist giving it a final hairdo after not seeing it for a while ;)
 
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you seem to have a natural feel for composition, and your drawing is excellent, so go for the painting...working direct with no sketch really sharpens skills and it a fine way to find out what you don't know...enjoying your work
 
I had a problem mixing darker values because my small watercolour pocket set doesn't include grey/black, and therefore I was just mising random colours until it looked "right". But I'll keep trying.

Note that with a small set of watercolours you don't need grey or black. Just play around with mixing a blue with a red or a brown, and you will get a grey or blackish colour - it's good to try doing a sample sheet of all combinations along these lines, and be amazed at the variety of warm and cool greys you can achieve. Most w/c purists say never use black. As you get more familiar with your pigments, it will become instinctive to throw in another strong colour to darken without the dull muddying effect that adding black would give. And the way that some pigments may separate slightly, or the artist chooses not to mix them too thoroughly, is what can give w/colours that special loose quality. ;)
 
@Gaby: Thank you! :t:

@Coleen: Thank you! I think I will keep trying to use the watercolours in that way and hopefully I'll learn faster. I hope I'll learn to use waterclours in a more relaxed way with less strokes to get the shapes/light right.

@MCW: Thanks for the useful advice! Next time it will be easier for me to mix dark tones. I'll try to prepare some kind of reference catalog on paper squares of the mixtures I can make with the paints I have. Maybe I should stick to that limited pallette for now to get the habit of mixing my own colours.

In the last couple of days I decided to give the watercolours a break and use a more familiar medium: coloured pencils. After seeing Liquid Len's thread about his colour pencil illustrations I decided to buy a few sheets of polyester drafting film, and I'm in love with the stuff already! The pencils glide on it really smoothly and I feel like I have more control. I'm doing this one with prismacolor premier and prismacolor verithin... and since I'm a bit lazy and impatient, I used oil pastels smeared with my finger to cover large areas. It seems to work great and I can still apply colour pencils on top of it (but also on the reverse of the film, which I find weird and interesting). I'll keep experimenting with this but I'm not giving up on those watercolours yet ;)

Thanks again for all the feedback! It's very encouraging.
 
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Thanks Tim!

I think I'm done with the puffin, or at least I don't think I can do much more. Time to go to bed |8||
 
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I've been playing with the watercolours again. I'm liking more this idea of loose painting without a sketch. Maybe one of these days I'll dare using things like this on a proper composition... and on proper paper because these sketchbooks always get wrinkly :p
 
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