Ed's thread (4 Viewers)

Strandman · Dec 22, 2008

Hello all. I had firm resolve to do a controlled and thoughtful painting of a Redshank over Christmas so have patiently garnered the material I need. In true life it looked like the Redshank was walking straight towards a lurking crocdile, an effect I have hopefully preserved. But I can tell it is about to go wrong, so I will post it here while I think about it. Its about 24" by 20". Do I go big blobby..small blobby..smooth..

Strandman · Dec 29, 2008

ed keeble said:
Hello all. I had firm resolve to do a controlled and thoughtful painting of a Redshank over Christmas so have patiently garnered the material I need. In true life it looked like the Redshank was walking straight towards a lurking crocdile, an effect I have hopefully preserved. But I can tell it is about to go wrong, so I will post it here while I think about it. Its about 24" by 20". Do I go big blobby..small blobby..smooth..

Hello all- no painting time until today but the Redshank continues to teeter towards the croc shaped island. I've resolved to treat this as an exercise to see what I have/haven't learned over the last year or so, therefore thoughtfully continuing and steadfastly resisting the temptation to reach for the big brush.

Strandman · Jan 1, 2009

Happy New Year all. Nipped out yesterday with the trusty biro and was rewarded with a Scaup fishing in the shallows- also did a little sketch of a wader roost and binned it as a mess- but when I saw one little fragment in the bin, decided to keep it as a reminder.

timwootton · Jan 1, 2009

All the best Ed - these are nice ends/starts to a year.
Just looking back at the redshank above and eagerly waiting for it to appear. This is going to be a real crackerjack.

Andrew H · Jan 1, 2009

Frame the Scrap and Ill have it...... fantastic stuff

Strandman · Jan 5, 2009

Andrew H said:
Frame the Scrap and Ill have it...... fantastic stuff

You are very kind and most welcome to the scrap- no room for a signature, but I could initial it as I think Mae West once said.

The Redshank continues. The water has somehow got a bit creamy and lacking in zing (lacking in zinc in fact), but time to do the bird and then see where we are on the whites.

We've had a couple of zingy sunsets round here with orange sky shining off ice, so my New Year's resolution not to waste time on self-indulgent over-hasty nonsense has fallen by the wayside.

timwootton · Jan 6, 2009

I'm sooo glad your resolutions cracked. Keep this sort of self-indulgent nonsense going for as long as poss.

nickderry · Jan 6, 2009

I am a huge fan of nonsense!

Woody · Jan 6, 2009

I love the juicy nonsense, don't let it stop.

Mike

Andrew H · Jan 6, 2009

when did 'juicey' creep into the vocab...?

chris3871 · Jan 6, 2009

I was out birding on the South Bank of the Humber the morning before yesterday's, and found a couple of wigeon bobbing about round the lumps of rock on the sea defence. I cottoned onto a few males first but when I got looking I found a load of females dotted in between. It reminded me instantly of your wigeon painting from a few weeks back.

The Hen Harrier's a beaut too.

Strandman · Jan 9, 2009

chris3871 said:
I was out birding on the South Bank of the Humber the morning before yesterday's, and found a couple of wigeon bobbing about round the lumps of rock on the sea defence. I cottoned onto a few males first but when I got looking I found a load of females dotted in between. It reminded me instantly of your wigeon painting from a few weeks back.

The Hen Harrier's a beaut too.

That's a very rewarding comment re the Wigeon- thank-you. The difference between birds in a landscape and birds as portraits has always niggled away at me- so the new Jonsson is proving a bit of a distraction.

Meantimes I've got my hands on a rather lovely carving by Keeble senior which I thought deserved a posting- he is 80 next year (we think) and still banging out the carvings, which is encouraging. This one is carved out of yew, which has a light outer and a dark heart, so the really clever bit is to locate the bird within the block so that you get the white wood on the tail tip and the dark lines running horizontally across the crown.

nickderry · Jan 9, 2009

that's a fantastic piece of carving, and so deceptively simple to look at. Superb.

Woody · Jan 10, 2009

Beautiful, I can feel the surface of it just by looking.

Mike

Andrew H · Jan 10, 2009

Thats Brillient, and good that hes still able to produce such works of art at his age......Big Up Keeble Senior

Strandman · Jan 11, 2009

Toddling along with the Redshank this evening and thought I would be very very clever and run a photo of the canvas with roughed out bird through photoshop, to work out where the reflection should go. So I did that and faithfully transferred the result to the painting..Pic 1

Unfortunately non-one told me that if you don't hold the camera level when you take the photo, you will end up with the reflection at the wrong angle and in the wrong place....

Pic 2 and 3 shows a return to photoshop for a valiant rearguard effort to work out where the reflection should be, so hopefully all is not lost and corrective action can commence..

As it happens Pic 3 looks a bit like a Redshank by Gilbert and George so maybe I should stop right there.

Andrew H · Jan 12, 2009

MMMmmmm Starting to look like a building plan with scaffold... 8-P

Strandman · Jan 12, 2009

Andrew H said:
MMMmmmm Starting to look like a building plan with scaffold... 8-P

Yup- I'm definitely out of my depth with this one.

I think that given the viewpoint (observer sitting about 4 feet above water level and positioned a bit to the right) the reflection shouldn't be a direct vertical mirror of the bird..

so the scaffolding now needs a kick, to move it to the right a bit and show a bit more of the underside of the bird.

Andrew H · Jan 12, 2009

I was only joking....Honest.....

timwootton · Jan 12, 2009

I've been visiting this thread late at night and keep forgetting to pst comments in the light of morning - so I'll rectify that; firstly, Keeble Snr is seriously starting to get my goat! Is there no end to his talent and versatility??? - I suppose it explains much of where the younger version gets his ability and vigour from. Woodcock is just a thing of great loveliness (the carving NOT the Mike

) and its tactile qualities are apparent even via t'internet - this most impersonal of mediums; love it.
The redshank was progressing in exactly the right direction (IMHO) so I was surprised to see the geometry applied. You now have it back under control though. You don't need me to tell you that getting reflections working properly is much more intuitive than doing the maths, and I thought you'd just about got it at the first go. However, just to support your own musings, you can check Busby in the RSPB guide; he explains what you've already concluded and far more eloquently than I could. EAR shows a similar grid-mechanism in 'The Living Birds' (a curlew, I think).
But to emphasise the point about 'feel' rather than 'accuracy' I could use an extremely famous painting by a monster of our genre to illustrate the point (but good manners prevent this). Just to say keep at it - I can feel a real goodie coming along.

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