From Tim Wootton's Studio (4 Viewers)

lovely lovely!

found a nice conversion to F 41 must seem warm after freezing weather, but still nippy to me! I found a pair of finger tipless alpaca gloves that I use in anything under 50

That is one solid and voluminous wigeon.

timwootton said:

Did something today that I haven't done for many, many years; sat in a bird hide and painted! What a luxury; scope on a flat surface, bum on a (fairly) comfy seat - even a ledge for paints, pencils, water and pad! Clever folk these hide designers - course it helped that I had the place to myself as I was using up the space usually allocated for five people (including the very convenient disabled section, where the bench slides away at an angle - perfect!). Course I ended up doing ducks all the same, but this time a wigeon drake enjoying the relative warmth of 5 degrees after the sh!t of the past few days.
On my return I had the urge to compile a selection of 'my' ducks - so out with the sketches and the watercolours.

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Ah yes, sketching in comfort, vaguely remember this Tim...

Results are telling all the same, what a wonderful Wigeon study, and a page of displaying Goldeneye, which are very, very good. For your interest found this online with regard to display, aparently the head throw is timed to within a split second...

"The problem of thoroughly analyzing such displays is not trivial. Benjamin Dane (now of Tufts University) and his colleagues studied 22,000 feet of film of displaying Common Goldeneyes. They used a stop-action projector to view each frame individually, counting frames (the film was exposed at a constant 24 frames per second) to determine the duration of a given display. It was thus possible to time each display accurately and to determine the probability of one display following another at each stage of the courtship. The projector was also used to analyze display-response interactions between individuals. One of the most interesting findings was the rather uniform timing of some of the displays -- the head-throw of the Goldeneye took an average of 1.29 seconds to perform, and some 95 percent of head-throws were timed at between 1.13 and 1.44 seconds."

"The great complexity of duck courtship displays probably has evolved because ducks tend to concentrate in small areas to breed, and closely related species often give their displays in plain view of each other (and of human observers, which makes them a joy to study). This has created considerable evolutionary pressure for each species to develop distinctive displays, so that hybridization among different species displaying together will be minimized. Thus, for example, the displays of Barrow's Goldeneyes are very different from those of Common Goldeneyes until the precopulatory stage is reached. In spite of this, some hybrids between Barrow's and Common Goldeneyes occur, but with nowhere near the frequency of hybrids between Mallards and Black Ducks, which have very similar displays."

Interesting. A lazy headbanging Common Goldeneye thus can attract sexual attention from Barrows, causing children of mixed race. What a minefield that is....

Nice work Alan - fascinating excerpt.
A quick colour sketch with a view to describing different types of reflections . . .

What beautiful and complicated water and reflections! For anyone who's been studying them this seems like a great summing up. This has to be the last page in the 'water and reflections' chapter of your book.

And, oh yes, good job on the mallard as well.

solitaryVSong said:

What beautiful and complicated water and reflections! For anyone who's been studying them this seems like a great summing up. This has to be the last page in the 'water and reflections' chapter of your book.

And, oh yes, good job on the mallard as well.

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Cheers Ken.

!!! you take my breath away with the apparent ease with which you accomplish the most complex things and with watercolor too!

Keep coming with the master classes Tim

I looked at this the other day when you posted it, immediately struck by its apparent simplicity, not only is the reflection masterful, but also the broken water behind, and the ripples across the water - everything seen and portrayed instantly with no fuss.

I need to know what colours you use for your greens! I was horrified when I went and got my pictures back from a local shop to see that I had exhibited a fluorescent green canvas.

Stunning picture.
It really demonstrates the movements in nature as well as the paint.

Awesome!!!!!!!!!
Outstanding work!!!

Paschalis

I could almost 'dip me toes' in that water Tim....! [then you'd have to alter the reflections so i'd better not]... Excellent work....

Nick said it all for me too...water can be such a pain...and here it just looks so effortlessly right!

nice work on the water there tim,watercolour is a complete mystery to me but to describe it merely as a quick colour sketch seems an understatement to me,it really does show your mastery of the medium to be able to capture the water movement and reflections with such deft strokes of colour!

Well, it's too overwhelming to catch up on everything you've done, so I just went to your last page. So perfectly beautiful as usual Tim! Next stop Nick's last page! Sorry I've been gone for so long! Missed my peeps...not the birds, the birders/artists.

birdpotter said:

Well, it's too overwhelming to catch up on everything you've done, so I just went to your last page. So perfectly beautiful as usual Tim! Next stop Nick's last page! Sorry I've been gone for so long! Missed my peeps...not the birds, the birders/artists.

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BETH !!!!!!! - WELCOME BACK!
and thanks for the kind words.
I'll dedicate these long-eared owl drawings to you.
Getting a tad stir crazy indoors drawing & writing so when my mate called from the old island that two long eared owls were still in residence (I first heard of them 6 weeks ago, but completely forgot about them - tsk tsk) I jumped on A BUS! - reminding myself what youngest daughter is constantly chirruping in my ear 'Daddy - we've GOT to save the planet!' - well, that is unless it's snowing or raining outside, when it's then a case of jumping in the car - no questions!
Anyway a pleasant if cold couple of hours were enjoyed and these sheets were produced. It took forever for the opainjt to even consider trying to dry - that's my excuse for not doing more work -

All beauties Tim but I really love that middle one. And I'm happy to hear that your daughter is offering you such words of wisdom. I'm afraid all we get from our cats is "It's time to eat."

wonderful owls, I hope someday to see one in the wild,hear them all the time, the last one on the last page sumi-ink zen perfect!

not going to ruin the enjoyment by trying to find something meaningful to say about them, just going to go back and enjoy them again.

Simply the best!!! a master with a brush...mark