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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)

solitaryVSong said:
Not that I followed this path but I think a number of people have. The newest I read about just the last few days is James Coe who was the Master Artist at Birds in Art this year. I just got the catalog and it mentions how he started off with a degree in Biology from Harvard, did a number of scientific field trips and then decided to go to art school for an MFA. Since then he's both illustrated field guides and done numerous paintings, some of which are beautiful landscapes with the birds well hidden in them. In any case he's a good example of switching careers, at least if what I read is wholly accurate.!
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Actually science work is not to bad. As an ornithologist/mammalogist I have been lucky to work in beautiful corners of the earth in close contact with awesome creatures. The problem is that I have an increasing feeling that my academic career is getting to the point where I'm doing more administrative work and less field work, and I don't like that feeling.

Whether art will ever be a professional activity for me or not, I'm having fun playing with pencils and paints. It's relaxing, I get to work in the field, and often I create something I feel proud of :king:

solitaryVSong said:
Very nice sketches as Tim says. Keep at it!
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Thanks! Keeping at it is my plan! Im just trying to make it a daily activity and not something I do every couple of months (which has been the case in the last 5 years or so).

Now I better take the sketchbook and binoculars to the local lake. The weather is great, the autum leaves are looking good, and many birds should be there on their way south.
 
Thanks Coleen!

I just came back from my morning twitch. Yesterday I bought a pocket watercolour set and decided to try it today. This is my first field sketch with watercolour wash ever! I made the breast of the goosander too gray because I tried to put some value, but anyway I think I like the result.

I normally work with colour pencils, pastels and sometimes acrylics but I always thought watercolours were intimidating. I think I'm converted now o:D

I still have a lot to learn... but hey, this is so much fun!
 
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Thanks for the kind comments! This is becoming my new obsession and I'm enjoying it.

Yesterday I decided to continue working on an adcrylic painting of a white-faced heron that I started over a year ago.

First picture is the original idea. I sketched it with paint straight on the canvas. I kind of liked the way it was looking back then.

For the second picture I re-painted the head and neck and started adding some colours on the bird. I also thought I should add some nice background of a blue sky and some sea or whatever... I hated it! I might as well have included a yellow smiley sun, a rainbow and some unicorns. That was a bad idea. I had to hide that thing where no one could see it.

Third picture: Yesterday I took that canvas out of its hiding place. I was thinking about just painting over it (it has already a semi-abstract semi-arty painting of sulphur-crested cockatoos behind the heron), but decided to give it another chance. Since the bird has cool tones I thought I should contrast it on a warm sort of background. At least now I can see the bird clearly and will try to add some details later. I'll decide what to do with the background at the end... hopefully it won't take another year for me to continue with it :)
 
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I've been working on the heron a bit more. I'd like to put more detail but I'm not sure what to do next. I'm reading a couple of books about light, and hopefully I'll learn about what I can do to make this picture look nicer
 
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Looks good Rodrigo. I think the background can be almost as important as the bird, or at least as troublesome, in work portraying birds. There are all sorts of solutions: a more or less solid color background, a very detailed realistic one, minimal details just enough to create an atmosphere, one that has a sense of light, and on and on. So it may take awhile to figure out what seems right for you.

The one thing I would consider for future work is whether or not to cut off the feet. Whether you're drawing people or birds I think it often looks best to at least make it look like the feet will fit in the picture, even if they're hidden behind foliage or something. This was a truism when I was learning art and of course truisms aren't always true! But in my experience it generally does seem to work better when you include the full figure, unless you're just doing a very closely cropped view.

In any case it sure looks to me like you should be keeping at this, and not putting the paintings away. My feeling too is that it may be most helpful to just look through a lot of paintings of birds rather than reading books on light, etc. Not that I don't read many books myself. I've just found them to be of secondary importance to images. As I look through images I know that they're always stacking up in the back of my mind, to be 'stolen' at another time as Picasso said.
 
Thank you Gaby! And Thank you Ken for the useful feedback!

I agree with you. The problem with this started when I used one of my photos as a reference. In the photo the foot was not visible either but I should have used my imagination instead of trying to copy it as it looked in the picture. Also, whenI first sketched it I just ran out of canvas. And that happened because I sketched directly with paint (after an advice given in one of my books) instead of using a pencil outline or something. I also didn't like the background of my photo, so in the absence of imagination I just painted the whole thing dark. I guess I should learn to draw properly before venturing into more complicated tasks :p

Anyway, I guess this painting is just "training". I'll try to think about ways to fix it and will learn from my mistakes for next time :)

I like reading art books, mostly because being self-taught I have no clue about anything, and it's nice to read advice from experienced and talented artists. But in any case I have noticed that all the good books have the same piece of advice: "go out and draw from nature all the time"... and that's what I should do. And of course as you said I shall look at lots of birds, instead of relying on single photographs.

Thanks again for the feedback. I truly appreciate it!
 
Great work on this thread. Somehow I missed subscribing to it, but fixed that now. Look forward to more!
 
Thanks John, Mark and Tony! Nice to "meet" you Tony. It's good to know there are more like-minded sciencey-arty people :t:

Another day, another background... I've ben messing with the heron painting again and I think I came up with a solution to the amputated legs' problem. I'm hiding them in vegetation (If you don't like it, just hide it!). I think it might work, if I manage to make the plants more detailed and better-looking. I think it also solves the problem of too much empty space around the bird.

I chose the plants based on reference photos I took in Northern Australia. Both plants (water hyacinth and white lotus) are invasive in Australia, but they look good, so I hope nobody will mind ;)

Anyway, hopefully I'll finish this one soon :smoke:
 
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you really have the bird down well, fitting it into the painting space will just take practice and experience.....:t: keep posting
 
Thanks Coleen and Gaby. I'm pleasantly surprised about how this one is coming out. I'll try to keep painting/drawing and posting :)
 
resparza said:
Thanks Coleen and Gaby. I'm pleasantly surprised about how this one is coming out. I'll try to keep painting/drawing and posting :)
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I often think that enthusiasm for your own work is one of the most important tools an artist can have. You've done a lot of experimenting on this. I'm glad to see it's paying off.
 
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