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

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  1. nickderry

    Recent sketches

    months later, but your new outlook has freed you up a lot, lots of messy lines that REALLY capture the essence of seeing the bird - now if only I could do the same....
  2. nickderry

    Recent sketches

    plenty of amazing things going on here - I agree it's impossible to tire of shrikes, though crab plover must be an amazing thing to see.
  3. nickderry

    Recent sketches

    fantastic stuff - the excitement of these unfamiliar species leaps off the page.
  4. nickderry

    Recent sketches

    I have to confess that when I look at your sketches - I never read what you've written about them so that I can identify them for myself - again, I got 100%, which is testimony to your sketching skills more than my ID skills! Great stuff - NOW, get some of these down in compositions, you know...
  5. nickderry

    Recent sketches

    You've been looking hard at these dunlin and found plenty of great stances and positions - I love waders, but they are so hard to do when constantly running and probing around. You've already had some great advice (hiding the legs is something I try to do often, the feet are always hidden!)...
  6. nickderry

    Recent sketches

    how wonderful to see the black-necked described with so few lines - such a distinctive shape and you've managed to do it perfectly. Each time I pop in here, I see more daring and confident lines, more exploratory poses and well, you're coming along in leaps and bounds, and you were bloody...
  7. nickderry

    Recent sketches

    ah black and white - yes there are a few - but as my tonal range is just as limited visually as when I sing - not many - here's a link to a few that I've done in 'band w' watercolour. http://nickderry.webs.com/apps/photos/album?albumid=3976197
  8. nickderry

    Recent sketches

    excellent work on the terns - you've certainly explored their shapes to the maximum. On the wet stuff - I like them all - I disagree that the mistle is crap - very nicely done with simple lines and tone. I have no idea what a 'band w' is - or I'm being particularly thick today! My head is...
  9. nickderry

    Recent sketches

    this thread keeps moving - you just get better and better now, and exploring new ideas too! Fantastic!
  10. nickderry

    Recent sketches

    if you're feeling adventurous - get a rigger brush and start drawing with that, it won't produce accurate results and can be frustrating, but it is certainly a good exercise and can make for some very interesting surprises.
  11. nickderry

    Recent sketches

    haha - now we've got you using a brush, you won't go back - beautiful tones here, I find linework aboslutely impossible and do all my b&w illustrations with black paint watered down. Also those lbbs are excellent and the best of all - that three quarter view blackbird's face on the first...
  12. nickderry

    Recent sketches

    excellent - immediately id'able as a blackwit - you can see how the hesitation disappears as you advance with the subject. It's been too long since I last saw one of these beauties.
  13. nickderry

    Recent sketches

    I agree with you! I've seen one whooper to sketch in about ten years - and what a sod he was to draw - I didn't get any pleasing sketches from the encounter - you've got it almost there, and I think that you can perhaps do a spread of 'home' sketches, taking from your notes and maybe some...
  14. nickderry

    Recent sketches

    superb smew - brings back memories of sketching them - lots of searching for the lines at first - their cryptic pattern breaks them up so well as to make their shape impossible to see - then you just pull it all together and create some superb drawings of the bird, describing its shape through...
  15. nickderry

    Recent sketches

    Smew! Lovely! I've been hoping to see some of these all winter with no success, these sketches are just how I remember most of the ones I've seen.
  16. nickderry

    Recent sketches

    you've made me nostalgic for oyks again - looking at these sketches brings many memories flooding back. (We don't get the buggers here)
  17. nickderry

    Recent sketches

    it doesn't get any easier - but the results DO get better! There are some really nice balanced drawings here - it's interesting that some of your earlier sketches had exaggerated heads (I'll find out some of my earlier stuff to show that I was doing this for years!) - here there are some really...
  18. nickderry

    Recent sketches

    you've taken one of the most difficult species and worked very hard to look at it - goosanders' heads take on some impossible shapes and here are some of them observed very skilfully indeed. I don't see anything wrong with the head on views - as in good scientific experiments, my observations of...
  19. nickderry

    Recent sketches

    I hope you realise just how good these are! The goldeneye are phenomenal - a species I used to sketch often in the UK, but they are quite scarce in this region, I caught up with one last month and found it damned hard to get it right - it looked exactly like your sketches. To answer your...
  20. nickderry

    Recent sketches

    line-drawing is damned hard, as Ed says, you must decide whether you're after an outline essence or a full range of tonal values (I LOVE those hawfinches!) I have to say I have never been a fan of hatching, I think that it's too easy to make it look like the bird is pieced together from old...
  21. nickderry

    Recent sketches

    nice! I feel I am cursed this year, no waxwings once again (only a handful of sightings of ondividuals here). I love these sketches, I recognise many of the shapes they make, they remind me of a group that I was sketching from my old bedroom window a few winters back. The particular favourites...
  22. nickderry

    Recent sketches

    moorhens are really irresistible, common they may be, but full of character and challenging. Some superb sketching here.
  23. nickderry

    Recent sketches

    nothing to pull apart here - the goosanders especially are perfectly observed and have all the balance and elegance of the real thing.
  24. nickderry

    Recent sketches

    this is superb sketching Russ, one of my favourite birds - their heads look like marshmallows floating on hot chocolate. The last sketch is particularly good.
  25. nickderry

    Recent sketches

    shovelers were made to scare! I'd suggest spending time sketching just the neck, you have all the bits right, but I'm not sure they sit in the right place, it's a matter of tinkering a little, and bearing in mind that it's been ages since I've seen shoveler so may be talking crap. I always find...
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