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

Ed's thread (3 Viewers)

Not a birdy weekend, but I was spared the Harry Potter film on the back of a promise to cook a meal. So I had a couple of hours to nudge the Nod and open a tin of beans. Only the scaps and coverts to go..

Whether there will be Monday lunchtime speedy sketch we shall see- stopped on way back from the station on Friday night to see a Northern Bottlenose Whale beached behind a jetty with 2 Oystercatchers chasing Herring Gull in the foreground- so it was visually interesting alright.

Shocking to hear the BBC lying again- they said the whale was stranded in "sand" when everyone knows there is nothing but mud and slime for a 5 mile radius around Ipswich.
 

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coming along very nicely indeed, I'd end up chucking a brick at the screen if I was forced to be this patient with a piece of work!
 
Brilliant Ed, its good to see it nearing completion. Looking forward to the
lunchtime masterpiece. will check in later to have a look.
No pressure !!
 
Brilliant Ed, its good to see it nearing completion. Looking forward to the
lunchtime masterpiece. will check in later to have a look.
No pressure !!

Falls some may short of masterpiece but here we are, pretty much as seen, whale wallowing behind the jetty and birds doing what they do.
 

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|=o|
Love the action in that photo, Ed.

There's lots not to love in it too (garish, vile colours, flawed perspective, frenzied multi-directional lines etc. etc.)

But well done to the birds for providing the action and making the composition- when the Herring Gull went up I could see what might be coming and was willing it on (possibly even urging it on out loud) to go just high enough so that its wing overlapped the jetty. I think it is my first gull picture in twenty-five years and certainly the first time I have shown any interest in a Herring Gull.|=o|
 
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|=o|
I think it is my first gull picture in twenty-five years and certainly the first time I have shown any interest in a Herring Gull.|=o|

So I've got one of the possibly very few Ed Keeble gull sketches around in the back of a very tatty notebook of mine - done just under 30 years ago! Still remember that grey day at Lowestoft looking for the Franklin's Gull having only the barest idea what we might be looking for!

How many years before another one I wonder (EK gull sketch I mean!).

Dave
 
So I've got one of the possibly very few Ed Keeble gull sketches around in the back of a very tatty notebook of mine - done just under 30 years ago! Still remember that grey day at Lowestoft looking for the Franklin's Gull having only the barest idea what we might be looking for!

How many years before another one I wonder (EK gull sketch I mean!).

Dave

Good grief- twenty-five years was a closer estimate than I thought!

Needless to say, I have no notebook but actually quite a disturbingly clear retained image of the bird on the edge of a puddle in parking lot, grey/brown crushed gravel underfoot, white reflection in puddle, grey sky and and light snowfall..hey- I feel a gull picture coming on..

[intermission]

...here we are- 30 years after the event, here's what was then a mega- Uk's 4th Franklin's in the snow at Lowestoft in 1977.

I gave myself a strict 15 mins for this one- 10 mins splooshing coffee and ribena at the desk before running for the train and 5 mins on the computer, so forgive amongst other things the cartooning.
 

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Is it me or is he very happy to be a Franklin's? certainly looks to be the star of the show with the black-headeds. I'm a big fan of this sort of picture, the characterisations of the birds are great.
 
Steady on now Ed - don't want my carefully preserved sketch to become commonplace.

Here's a photo which captures the very scene, including the weather (scroll down a bit).

dave

Well found- but the shame of it; you would have hoped that after 30 years I would have remembered how much black that Frank had on its primaries.

The apparent hunched smugness of the Frank as noticed by Nick D and raucous disposition of the B-heads in my offering is probably subconciously based on a photo of Arsenal players mobbing van Nistelroy in 2003 (Keown is played by the gull on the right). Tim Wootton may be able to confirm this if he is about.
 
Well found- but the shame of it; you would have hoped that after 30 years I would have remembered how much black that Frank had on its primaries.

The apparent hunched smugness of the Frank as noticed by Nick D and raucous disposition of the B-heads in my offering is probably subconciously based on a photo of Arsenal players mobbing van Nistelroy in 2003 (Keown is played by the gull on the right). Tim Wootton may be able to confirm this if he is about.
Correct, Sir and the sh*tty little leftback with a face to rival Mr snarly-pants-Keown (Winterbank?? or something? hilarious it was, when he thought he was going to get a smack - the terror in his eyes - then he saw his big mates and carried on!).
But back to more meaningful things - remarkable how well you retained the image and character of the original event - 70 years ago. Excellent work.
I really do think it's time to start a 'Birding Memoires' - your illustrative style would add hugely to what I'm sure would be an engrossing read. C'mon Ed - stop mucking about at lunchtimes. I always thought you lacked application and direction!!!!! ;)
 
short but boring meeting this lunchtime, but fortunately propelling pencils available- i have no idea what species I have doodled here but maybe a hint of one of those weirdy island rails

I've tried a bit of that pro-style unidirectional shading, but may have a bit to learn there.
 

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Nice Rail (don't hear that very often!). This thing about shading - what I do is to squint at the object, assume where the light/dark curve occurs and then draw a quick contour delineating the change. The 'dark' can then be 'shded' any way one wishes. I'll post a quickie . . .
 
light/dark

very basic shaded object - try to decide the line of change(from dark to light) - this changes incrementally as the light source moves from behind (back-lighting) to front (flood). The starkness of the change is dirctly related to the angle of the light source (almost - but gets a bit complicated). Also - and most critical for colourwork - is the effect reflected light has on the object (may often make undersides of most 'shaded' parts quite bright!
 

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