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Ed's thread (6 Viewers)

Delicious Red Neck Ed, catching so much of the species little distinctive traits, the head always looks to big to me when I see them, which is not so often these days. I see them here on passage, little flecks bombing along the baltic horizon with two white patches on the trailing edge at some miles range. This is the way to see them. Seeing as I wasn't there for this one your sketches provide a very satisfactory window to peer through. Carracking stuff Ed.
 
The grebes are just dandy and the buzzard looks like yet another winner. I can already visualise the moving brushstrokes and zingy colours!

Mike
 
Excellent work with the RNG, Ed. I love your sketching style - no fannying around here. Although I've almost squat experience re these birds, the neck on your worked up piece looks fine to me. I know from Great Crested Grebes that the larger grebes' necks can look rather un-natural in certain postures. Expertly done plumage, too.

Russ
 
hello all- a week or so passes and I'm onto page 2 already: how very splendid to see so much life on the forum

almost no painting time right now, but a little bit of progress on the big bale buzzard pic- and I did manage to wander out into the field again and check that the bale comes up to my armpit, so buzzard size should now be about right..
 

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Another sumptuous walk-in WIP!

Am getting indigestion just looking at it! Very RICH!

We spent a lot of time with RNGrebe today. Your sketches really do the bird justice. Spirited and compact!
 
phil baber said:
Another sumptuous walk-in WIP!

Am getting indigestion just looking at it! Very RICH!

We spent a lot of time with RNGrebe today. Your sketches really do the bird justice. Spirited and compact!
Click to expand...

So just as I'm about to say what a RICH painting it is I decide to take a look at other comments. Phil has beat me to it. True nonetheless. I'd comment on something else but think I'd better wait to see if it remains in finished version;);)
 
solitaryVSong said:
So just as I'm about to say what a RICH painting it is I decide to take a look at other comments. Phil has beat me to it. True nonetheless. I'd comment on something else but think I'd better wait to see if it remains in finished version;);)
Click to expand...

not sure what you have your eye on, and if it or them is still there after recent workings..

but its a bit of a struggle currently

the buzzard has hopped three bales back in the picture, which was the right call I think, but unfortunately he didn't look like a buzzard, more like the illicit spawn of a nightjar and a hare: surely any brown blob with some white bits would look like a buzzard? but no

so I have scraped him off and will have another go soon...
 

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Everything around the buzzard is going well, but I always have trouble painting this sort of scene, it's so difficult to make a bird that's small in its landscape a part of it too. Looking forward to seeing how you tackle the problem. If it were me doing this, I'd try to put as much of the hay colour into the bird and keep it tonally poor to keep the viewers' attention away from it 'until they're ready to see it' so to speak.
 
nickderry said:
Everything around the buzzard is going well, but I always have trouble painting this sort of scene, it's so difficult to make a bird that's small in its landscape a part of it too. Looking forward to seeing how you tackle the problem. If it were me doing this, I'd try to put as much of the hay colour into the bird and keep it tonally poor to keep the viewers' attention away from it 'until they're ready to see it' so to speak.
Click to expand...

Nick's advice sounds good to me: let it appear when the viewer is ready to see it, a style that you've mastered in much of your work I think.

I hesitate even to mention what struck me. One reason I don't like to say much specific about others paintings is that one someone does so about mine that whatever they say is then the only thing I notice for the next week or so! Like saying, please don't look at my nose. In any case what hit me was the strong horizontal line at back of field. I'd just never noticed such a strong horizontal in any of your earlier work and it really struck me. And I like it. Since it seemed unusual for you I wondered if it would stay. Of course I'm probably just wrong and you've used it many times before.;);)
 
Hi Ed, coming along very well and your almost there. Nick's advice is good.

The piece is rather loose, impressionistic almost and all the better for it. You just have to find a way of painting the buzzard in the same style, otherwise its going to stand out like a sore thumb.

It's a terrible affliction, being a birder and a painter. The temptation is to put every last detail into the birds, even when they are small blips in a canvas, to get the salient diagnostic features in there no matter what.

I suppose the truth is you cant really see the median covert's on a Buzzard across a field with the naked eye. But we know that they are indeed there;)
 
It's still headed the right way Ed - Nick speaks much sense as usual. Maybe worth remembering the Bateman philosophy; is the painting about wildlife ( buz) or landscape? He professes never to mix the focus of the two and he does have a point. This landsape sits aesthetically and perfectly naturally without the bird; the focus being the perspective of the bales and that sumptuous colourwork.
Cracking piece.
 
timwootton said:
It's still headed the right way Ed - Nick speaks much sense as usual. Maybe worth remembering the Bateman philosophy; is the painting about wildlife ( buz) or landscape? He professes never to mix the focus of the two and he does have a point. This landsape sits aesthetically and perfectly naturally without the bird; the focus being the perspective of the bales and that sumptuous colourwork.
Cracking piece.
Click to expand...

was thinking the same thing and if you want the bird in should be incidental and only something discovered close up view...
 
timwootton said:
Maybe worth remembering the Bateman philosophy; is the painting about wildlife ( buz) or landscape? He professes never to mix the focus of the two and he does have a point. This landsape sits aesthetically and perfectly naturally without the bird; the focus being the perspective of the bales and that sumptuous colourwork.
Cracking piece.
Click to expand...

All well and good about the Bateman philosophy but why then does he call his very striking entry in the most recent Birds in Art 'Redwings and Yellowthroat?' You can hunt a good hard time before finding the Common Yellowthroat, coincidentally the subject of my most recent paintings. If you look at the painting and even read what he says "'Redwinds and Yellowthroat' portrays the banquet for the eye one finds at the edge of a marsh" you can't help but thinking it should really be called 'Life at the Edge of a Marsh.' It really looks like the vegetation is most important. And yet he titles it with birds.

All in all I'm not completely sure he follows the Bateman philosophy.;);)

Sorry I can't find a link to this striking painting.
 
well one thing different is it is 6 feet long and not concerned with any distance it's all close view
 

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well there's some wise words in there- will I ever have the maturity to accept a landscape for what it is, without thinking where's the bird, where's the beast? its like the Seago landscapes - winter marshes, a few trees and always a gate- but where's the Roughleg?

here's my idea of utter perfection in terms of place and prominence from G E Lodge of the old school, secret pact between artist and landscape to reveal bird:
 

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That's precisely it, Ed - the landscape contains the bird and reveals it eventually. Now do your buzz like old George and we'll call it a day ;)
 
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