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

Ed's thread (3 Viewers)

timwootton said:
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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I am looong overdue for a few lessons in the basics and that's one of them- a much appreciated bit of teaching.

When I did last year's Spoonie for BirdsKorea my father-in law (art lecturer and not birder) buttonholed me to say that in order to give convincing form, the lower belly of a wader should be rendered bright due to reflected light, with the shading positioned closer to lower-mid. What does he know..

The other thing that interested me a lot in your skua demo was the "drawing from the inside" approach, with some basic form and shading first and outline second. I've never ever thought of doing anyything other than outline first- is the skua TW's personal approach, or the orthodox?
 
Ed - I personally feel drawing is as individual as, say, handwriting. Just do it how it comes to you. Yes we all need to know how to make the 'letter-shapes' (I suppose this is the bit that can be 'taught'), but the way the hands and arms move is as individual as your fingerprints. That's what makes it special.
 
timwootton said:
Ed - I personally feel drawing is as individual as, say, handwriting. Just do it how it comes to you. Yes we all need to know how to make the 'letter-shapes' (I suppose this is the bit that can be 'taught'), but the way the hands and arms move is as individual as your fingerprints. That's what makes it special.
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Thats great Tim a perfect way of putting it. You seem to have
an ability to make your points well. err somit I aint good at!

I've always drawn instinctively I suppose being self taught
to a large degree helps you define a style more easily.
A way , of Drawing as apposed to the way to draw if there is such a
thing.
 
Can't argue with you gents above- but any hints on how it is generally done still appreciated by an untutored randomist like me.

So I did have bit more of a muse on Tim's "line of change" insight over lunch. Here's a quick try out with just a little dragged ribena but no biro frenzy- reconstruction of another fine and surreal 1980s twitching moment when a big fat bloke ambled up to the White-crowned Black Wheatear at Kessingland dump and started smashing up a fridge with a hammer. I quite like the way the bird's head is repeated in the contours of his sweaty armpit ..
 

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Outrageously good, young man! - (You have to give serious thought to the Bird Memoires - I would be honoured to write the intro!!!!!
 
excellent! An inspiration for me to perhaps finally paint an osprey flying over a naked German flying a kite on a beach in the Canaries.
 
ed keeble said:
Can't argue with you gents above- but any hints on how it is generally done still appreciated by an untutored randomist like me.

So I did have bit more of a muse on Tim's "line of change" insight over lunch. Here's a quick try out with just a little dragged ribena but no biro frenzy- reconstruction of another fine and surreal 1980s twitching moment when a big fat bloke ambled up to the White-crowned Black Wheatear at Kessingland dump and started smashing up a fridge with a hammer. I quite like the way the bird's head is repeated in the contours of his sweaty armpit ..
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This just begs to be followed up by your unforgettable 'Man practising kung fu in council flat behind Hudwit at Blacktoft', as featured in 'Not BB' many moons ago. I tried to find the pic online, but sadly didn't succeed. Perhaps you could reproduce it here as the next in your series of surreal moments in British Twitching History?

Cheers

Dave
 
ed keeble said:
Can't argue with you gents above- but any hints on how it is generally done still appreciated by an untutored randomist like me.

So I did have bit more of a muse on Tim's "line of change" insight over lunch. Here's a quick try out with just a little dragged ribena but no biro frenzy- reconstruction of another fine and surreal 1980s twitching moment when a big fat bloke ambled up to the White-crowned Black Wheatear at Kessingland dump and started smashing up a fridge with a hammer. I quite like the way the bird's head is repeated in the contours of his sweaty armpit ..
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Before I read the post I enlarged the pic on my screen, and the following caption entered my head!...

''Heartless old farmer has personal epiphany and resolves to destroy larson trap to free the magpies''

Think I've probably been out in the sun too much recently:'D

Fantastic drawing

Matt
 
Hello all. Just to breath a little life into my thread- no new creative initiatives this week but finally managed to find space for a BIG old workbench to be slid into my shed. Amongst the crap to be cleared out the way was a long abandoned kite carving/model (head too big) which had the honour of first incumbent of my new BIG vice. So in a pulp fiction kind of way I drilled its eyes out and rasped its cheeks off just to let it know I was back in business and it felt good to have the old Black and Decker whirring again. A couple of shots attached just to show how radically wing shape changes with a slight shift in angle of view.
 

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Fantastic workspace Ed - are you renting space out???? The two images of the kite are lessons in perspective and foreshortening. It looks to be heading the right way, too (what's the medium?). Very nice.
 
timwootton said:
Fantastic workspace Ed - are you renting space out???? The two images of the kite are lessons in perspective and foreshortening. It looks to be heading the right way, too (what's the medium?). Very nice.
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I'm blessed with some very nice space to work in but not currently spending enough time in it. Posting on here is in part an effort to top up the guilt burden to the point where I tiptoe out there more often.

The kite is brass sheet and epoxy clay on wire (same as a B-t Diver I posted a while back in similar unfinished condition), and had neat little black and yellow glass eyes until yesterday's drilling session.
 
Hello all. Nod still nodding but nearly done (the Nodmeister has seen it and said "waou" which either means "good" or "please stop"..)

and I've blown the dust off the starter for what will be my reward when the Nod is done- a big splooshy Polish landscape.

But it will be a start from scratch job- the attached began some years ago as a perfectly dull but harmless watercoloury job and then got enmired in pointless detail about half way down the page when I foolishly scanned it onto the computah and started cloning clumps of sedge.

So an object lesson in how not to marry old and new techniques. It is going to get tossed in the bin in this form and reenacted on a biiiiiig wet piece of paper using my newly discovered freedom to just throw stuff at paper (for which continuing thanks to this forum).

The birds I've just splatted on for fun here as part of the restart process and a reminder of what I was planning to do- there will be a big swirling mass of WWB Terns, a Bluethroat and a Corncrake all recreating a rather lovely walk down a wet track on a June morning some years ago.
 

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ed keeble said:
Hello all. Nod still nodding but nearly done (the Nodmeister has seen it and said "waou" which either means "good" or "please stop"..)

and I've blown the dust off the starter for what will be my reward when the Nod is done- a big splooshy Polish landscape.

But it will be a start from scratch job- the attached began some years ago as a perfectly dull but harmless watercoloury job and then got enmired in pointless detail about half way down the page when I foolishly scanned it onto the computah and started cloning clumps of sedge.

So an object lesson in how not to marry old and new techniques. It is going to get tossed in the bin in this form and reenacted on a biiiiiig wet piece of paper using my newly discovered freedom to just throw stuff at paper (for which continuing thanks to this forum).

The birds I've just splatted on for fun here as part of the restart process and a reminder of what I was planning to do- there will be a big swirling mass of WWB Terns, a Bluethroat and a Corncrake all recreating a rather lovely walk down a wet track on a June morning some years ago.
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Intriguing. Like the backgrounds we used to get to stick 'transfers' onto when I was a kid, or maybe the backdrop for a "Where's Wally?" (bird-equivalent) picture!

Nodshank looks accomplished, in every sense!

Dave
 
Agree with Dave - the Nodshank is superb - well worth the painstaking effort, excellent.
Actually I love the landscape and wouldn't bin it myself (I obviously have a lower personal expectation level than you!) - but I am looking forward to the new version immensely. Get on with it then . . .
 
There was one more from the weekend- a gorgeous and ultra-whizzy Hobby that flew alongside me as I drove to the station, so close that it was almost looking into the car.
 

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