Welcome to Nick's dining room table. (1 Viewer)

[nickderry]

bit more done, this is starting to look like how I painted in 2000-2001.

 

[timwootton]

And I love it like this. Looking great.

 

[peter mathios]

Hairdryers are the way to go when all the blending is done! I really like the merganser piece. There is a great sense of movement. The new one is really coming along as well. Maybe you should post some of your earlier stuff that you are talking about. There is a rawness and trueness to the first steps of paintings that I love and you really have it here. Looking forward to the finished piece!

 

[ARTHUR BISHOP]

Another corker on its way Nick

 

[nickderry]

Well here it is, I hardly recognise myself in it! But I like it for once.

 

[nickderry]

Hairdryers are the way to go when all the blending is done! I really like the merganser piece. There is a great sense of movement. The new one is really coming along as well. Maybe you should post some of your earlier stuff that you are talking about. There is a rawness and trueness to the first steps of paintings that I love and you really have it here. Looking forward to the finished piece!

I'll have to have a look for some of my earlier paintings when I visit my parents in August. I'll do a little retrospective of them, including my attempts at photo realism (you'll see why I abandoned lots of detail!)

 

[nickderry]

I got up at 6:00am! FOOL! Here's todays sketches, going all goo goo, the redstarts have got babies! So have the green woodpeckers (too quick flying off through the trees to sketch).

So, we have: Goosander (no chicks seen today!) Redstart, baby redstarts (the void to the left is a Middle Spotted pecker - not part of the same scene obviously!), Lesser Spotted pecker (baby redstart again) and some Marsh Tits, note the flyover Hawfinch.

 

[timwootton]

Superb set of drawings again Nick. The goosander is tremendous - lovely colourwork, too - totally convincing bird. The foot-picking start is wonderfully observed as are the fledgelings - excellent studies.
I'm popping out right now to do some oystercatcher and arctic tern drawings (hopefully) - I can feel a birdy painting coming on.
It's Father's Day - so I can do as I bl**dy-well please!

 

[ARTHUR BISHOP]

Nick you are certainly in the grove ,this is really great stuff.

 

[buzzard12]

Nice Nick. Like the imm. Redstarts a lot, Goosander is exceptional, all your work on this species is paying off. Really well drawn....

 

[dryslwyn]

Continuing to enjoy seeing your sketches Nick - the goosander is my recent favorite.

Dryslwyn

 

[Woody]

I don't know how I missed these latest drawings Nick, but I'm sure glad I,ve found 'em this morning.
Those redstarts are amazing, as is the goosander, and the marsh tits and... Oh, what am I saying... They're all brilliant.

Woody

 

[peter mathios]

Man, I love your work. The study with the leg up is really impressive!!

 

[nickderry]

Update from the dining room table. A whole weekend to go sketching and it rains (and the French have the nerve to say it rains all the time in Wales). So while I drink my cup of tea, curse the weather and think what I'll try to paint today, I thought I'd share a quote that applies to how my paintings are going at the moment, and one that I think captures perfectly the insane need to draw living, moving things:

"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief, all kill their inspiration and then sing about the grief."

U2, The Fly, taken from Achtung Baby. One of the greatest songs of all time IMHO (and I say the same of any song that I like at one time or another).

Hopefully I'll post some paintings later rather than other people's lyrics!

 

[Woody]

Who was it that said 'The first brushstroke is always perfect, it's the next 10, 000 that spoil it' Or something like that.

I'm off out sketching tommorrow morning whether it rains or not! So there!

Woody

 

[nickderry]

Here's my output for last night and today, not very inspired I have to say, more an exercise in 'banging' out a lot of paint:

 

[nickderry]

and while I'm getting drunk on another cheap bottle of plonk, I'll reminisce and look at what I was doing 8 years ago at the tender age of 16. These are from Belvide Reservoir in Staffordshire, my local patch between 1997 and 2001. I miss this place, always something to sketch and hides.

 

[nickderry]

more: the Woodchat was at Sutton Park, West Midlands, the second ever record for the West Midlands region.

 

[Woody]

16?! That is soooo not fair! I'd be very proud of work like this now, let alone when I was at the tender age of 16. You can go off people you know!

Woody

 

[Vectis Birder]

Oh. My. God... Nick those are fantastic. Like Woody I'd be proud of those, too.