• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Ed's thread (5 Viewers)

Hello all. I've been offline for a while whilst trying to sort out a Hobby painting from the spring. Several repaints and a hosedown, but here we are. Someone appears to be holding up a four-pronged toasting fork in the background, but i forgive them.

I'm still on acrylics with a bit of oil pastel dabbed about to keep it interesting, but for this sort of thing the next stop is probably something closer to thinned oils underneath and fat oils on top.
 

Attachments

  • q9 5945.jpg
    q9 5945.jpg
    162.1 KB · Views: 82
Lovely Ed, and I see no toasting fork. I'll leave Username to wax lyrical, he's obsessed with the little gems, and this represents them well!
 
The Beardies and Shoveler are real stunners Ed, I love your treatment of the surroundings. The Hobby is such a great piece - your familiarity with the subject really shines through. This thread contains some of the most inspiring and original work I've seen.
 
Nick Sinden said:
This thread contains some of the most inspiring and original work I've seen.
Click to expand...

Can't say much more than that!

I've never seen a Hobby and am not sure how similar Peregrines might be to them. But recently we were thrilled to briefly see three Peregrines while out in the backyard. I believe it was two youngsters and their parent and that they most likely came from a nearby church steeple where they've been nesting for a number of years. What a thrill it was to see their acrobatics. I assume, perhaps incorrectly, that hobbies engender the same type of excitement.
 
solitaryVSong said:
I assume, perhaps incorrectly, that hobbies engender the same type of excitement.
Click to expand...

You are right about excite, although each falco has its own particular brand mystique: in the eyes of their fan club, Hobbies have a dash and reclusiveness that the mightier and meatier falcos can't quite deliver.

I've been struggling a bit to work out eyeshape and just where the yellow eyelids show on the angle- so treated myself to a break from the easel and instead tried modelling a 3D H head on the computah. Rendered here in blue to reflect the big summer sky they inhabit.
 

Attachments

  • hobbyphoto.jpg
    hobbyphoto.jpg
    23.5 KB · Views: 46
Absolutely beyond me this 3-D modeling on the computer. But it makes perfect sense to me to use it to better understand the structure of a bird. And a beauty as well.
 
Hello all

I'm still at it- wavering as ever between stuff where you let the white of the canvas shine through and do some of the work for the you (Little Grebes is one of them) and the stuff where you blat the paint on all over and if you want white, you have to get out the paint trowel and make it white (Turnstone is closer to that way of doing).

I think it's one of those heart and head things. No urgent resolution required or expected.
 

Attachments

  • q9800DSC_5958.jpg
    q9800DSC_5958.jpg
    146.8 KB · Views: 81
  • q9850DSC_5974.jpg
    q9850DSC_5974.jpg
    228.2 KB · Views: 81
ed keeble said:
Hello all

I'm still at it- wavering as ever between stuff where you let the white of the canvas shine through and do some of the work for the you (Little Grebes is one of them) and the stuff where you blat the paint on all over and if you want white, you have to get out the paint trowel and make it white (Turnstone is closer to that way of doing).

I think it's one of those heart and head things. No urgent resolution required or expected.
Click to expand...

Enjoyable as usual Ed.

For me letting white show through, esp. in a watercolor, helps to make a vibrant painting where light plays an important role. It's always my goal in a watercolor, though one I rarely succeed at.

But sometimes I just know that the form of the bird or whatever is wrong. That's when I really want to just paint right over it and make the form more to my liking. So when I work in acrylic I feel like shackles have been removed. I can get the form right and still have all the white I want. I'm not sure that you look at things in this way at all but the Turnstone sort of looks that way, like the white was trowled on until the form was right.

Either way both methods suit you well.
 
That's a real living breathing turnstone (seemingly conjured up effortlessly!)...love the way that the focus is on the (brilliantly drawn) head. The grebes is just beautiful...that water!
 
Thank-you all for kind words.

Painting life splutters along- I've finally grasped the nettle and got in a selection of oils, so this is their first outing. No dicking about with the dickie birds on this one- tried hard to keep them simple and toned down, concentrate on buffalo attitude and the super hooked shadow thrown by the high sun.
 

Attachments

  • q9 900 DSC_6862.jpg
    q9 900 DSC_6862.jpg
    205.3 KB · Views: 63
ed keeble said:
Thank-you all for kind words.

Painting life splutters along- I've finally grasped the nettle and got in a selection of oils, so this is their first outing. No dicking about with the dickie birds on this one- tried hard to keep them simple and toned down, concentrate on buffalo attitude and the super hooked shadow thrown by the high sun.
Click to expand...

Aha! But I see that you have snuck in some dickie birds after all!
You look quite comfortable with oils. And there's a nice sense of mass to the buffalo. It's interesting to see how you work with heftier, literally, subjects.
 
Warning! This thread is more than 10 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Similar threads

Troubador
Fond Memories: 17 Years with a Zeiss Dialyt 10x40B GAT*
2
Replies
22
Views
6K
GrampaTom
G
wolfbirder
Bialowieza, NE Poland - Woodpecker jaunt 7-11 May 2015
Replies
17
Views
9K
Surreybirder
Surreybirder
P
Two 'non birding' trips to Peninsula Malaysia 2014
Replies
9
Views
4K
andyb39
A
Tri-Counties Birder
Scottish Highlands and beyond...
Replies
7
Views
3K
Tri-Counties Birder
Tri-Counties Birder
Isurus
Sierra Andujar, jan 13 - Iberian lynx, chameleon, etc
Replies
6
Views
3K
Ian Loyd
I

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 6 (members: 0, guests: 6)
Back
Top