Wings Over Winecountry, Colleen's place (4 Viewers)

[Woody]

Yes, the portrait is finished, and it's great. Now stop fiddling woman!

As for the dunlin, I think you've got a winning composition there right on that page. Reminds me of work by Matthew Hillier, an Englishman living in the US. He often does small, letterbox format paintings, little gems they are too. Have a go is what I say!

Mike

 

[timwootton]

The portrait is indeed finished and should be cherished for what it is - a thing of real beauty borne through understanding.
Loooooverrrly dunin sketch-sheet - rip it out and get it in a frame.

 

[colleenc]

Ho Ho too late Mike, already changed the back line and took off the rumpled wrist feather, it look weird when reduced. Also slightly redid the eye, all in all small changes but I'm happier now. and it is done, really really tho there is something still a bit off with the beak, but it passed muster with the director so I'm letting it be as she is a raptor specialist....

thanks for the dunlin comments all,

Just getting started with the dunlin, they were there with the godwits, so may try that one when I get ready....have a couple of commissions to finish by christmas so have to let go of the birdies for a bit.

 

[solitaryVSong]

A nice parade of dunlin All sit nicely on the page(s).

 

[nickderry]

hawk - superb with a capital s, and those dunlin are in a wonderful composition already as they snake across the page.

 

[guzzi09]

Great

What a lovely thread Ive followed it from the beginning. I wish I could draw.
John
B

 

[clive2604]

hawk luverly! have to agree with previous comments about the dunlin sketches,i think theyre great and would make a superb letterbox shape painting

 

[Strandman]

Just noticed the Dunlin- they are really good. Especially the way there's a movement that runs through the flock right to left.

 

[Apodemus]

Just noticed the Dunlin- they are really good. Especially the way there's a movement that runs through the flock right to left.

Yes, I love that feeling of movement in this composition.

 

[colleenc]

yes there is something about those long narrow compositions that make great bird comps. I hesitate to do dunlin when I've only observed them in the field one time. There are so many paintings in my mind to do they just stack up birds are so inspiring. Thanks for all the lovely comments here. Well we'll see.....

 

[ChrissyM]

The Dunlin looks like a real interesting composition as has already been said and the painting is beautiful.
I really love the background as well as the bird, it just all works so nicely. Nice one:t:

 

[colleenc]

Last weekend walked a part of Kordum Trail, a beautiful preserved part of the Sonoma Coast ( named for Kordum the one man who managed to stop the development that already had the streets named and lots marked off.) I went with some experienced birders, who know the area, to see birds of prey....Lucky day very sunny not much wind, and saw kestrals, maybe a merlin, 3 migrating redtails, and a wonderful overflight and hunt of a harrier female, first I've ever seen! wow! no don't expect sketches yet, yes I did some scibbles, but hardly recognizable as birds.... I took no photos and anyway without bins couldn't see much.

My friends sent me a link to a fab series of a male harrier skydancing, enjoy, and said maybe we will get really lucky this spring and see this in the same area we walked where there is a nesting pair...

Enjoy
http://brdpics.blogspot.com/2007/04/well-its-marvelous-day-for-sky-dance.html

 

[cjoakley]

Colleen - hawk is fabulous...background first rate - agree with other comments on the dunlins...would be a great composition as is...

Thanks for the link!

 

[colleenc]

You're welcome Chris
so many liked the dunlin, I may have to try it, can't decide if I want oils or pastel....

I've slowed down some coming to the holidays, but have found my first merganzer at Howath Park that also has some bufflehead, but they are mostly far away,and I havent figured out how to sketch them direct yet. The merganzers come in a get the bread people throw for the resident mallards. I really like these ducks they move like roadsters and the females are really like mad redheads...

As usual, my first attempts were scribbles, then I got some semblance of the forms and did quick sketches, took them home to color in, used some photos too, and the more formal study is from a photo. I tried a harder outline like some of the artists posts , but mine is not as subtle as the artists I love here. Probably cause I don't know my birds as well. I really was amazed when they got out of the water, the breast and undersides of both were a lovely creamy sunset tone.

having trouble uploading the other two I'll try later

 

[colleenc]

more merganzers

 

[colleenc]

Still working on mergansers, I at least learned how to spell it now.
and still trying to improve my watercolor techniques.

Hope all had a happy Christmas day for those who celebrate that., we had California's version of a white Christmas, last night it got cold enough (29 F) for every blade of grass to get frosted....but the sun came out all day.....

 

[timwootton]

This red-head is perfectly seen - just how they stand. Season's greetings to you too Colleen.

 

[colleenc]

thanks Tim,
I've been wondering lately how can I possibly succeed in really seeing the nuances when I have so little time in the field sketch. So I thought it might be interesting to show a field sketch next to what I made from my photo of the same thing. Of course I'm talking about action, not a still bird here, but I just notice that my field sketch line is way more generalized and not as precise as the one where I use my photo to support it. Not to mention that the form and proportion is better when I used the photo.

Would be very interested in what you all think about this. Or comments you may have, maybe this changes with more years of drawing in the field.
So here are both, I took a photo at the same time I sketched. ( used my camera as my bins)

 

[Strandman]

thanks Tim,
I've been wondering lately how can I possibly succeed in really seeing the nuances when I have so little time in the field sketch. So I thought it might be interesting to show a field sketch next to what I made from my photo of the same thing. Of course I'm talking about action, not a still bird here, but I just notice that my field sketch line is way more generalized and not as precise as the one where I use my photo to support it. Not to mention that the form and proportion is better when I used the photo.

Would be very interested in what you all think about this. Or comments you may have, maybe this changes with more years of drawing in the field.
So here are both, I took a photo at the same time I sketched. ( used my camera as my bins)

That's a very good way of making the point- I'm not sure anyone can see all of the nuances when sketching a moving bird. There's too much to see at once. So a complete looking sketch of a moving bird just has to be part drawn as seen, part drawing of what you know to be there, but did not see in that moment.

So the sketches that really do it for me are the ones where the unseen is left out - just a couple of perfectly-as-seen lines (maybe the crown, eyeshape, throat outline, a few raised feathers- whatever caught the eye). The rest just a few suggestively thrown loops, deliberately not drawn as if they have been seen, but things maybe to be picked up in the next sketch.

 

[solitaryVSong]

thanks Tim,
I've been wondering lately how can I possibly succeed in really seeing the nuances when I have so little time in the field sketch. So I thought it might be interesting to show a field sketch next to what I made from my photo of the same thing. Of course I'm talking about action, not a still bird here, but I just notice that my field sketch line is way more generalized and not as precise as the one where I use my photo to support it. Not to mention that the form and proportion is better when I used the photo.

Would be very interested in what you all think about this. Or comments you may have, maybe this changes with more years of drawing in the field.
So here are both, I took a photo at the same time I sketched. ( used my camera as my bins)

Since I don't have much field experience either my opinion won't be nearly as valuable as that of those with a lot of experience. But one thing I found right off with photos when I started drawing and painting birds about three years ago was that photos were fine, until I couldn't quite figure out what I was seeing. For instance what happened to their feet which were buried in shadow and indecipherable? What did they look like? I had no idea. What about those feathers in the back of my Blackburnian warbler photo? Were they part of the tail or the wings? How did they fit with everything else?

More than this probably is that for me when I first started doing art about 40 years ago I realized that the ones I did from photos were dead as doornails. That doesn't seem to be as true now but I think that's because I have an emotional connection to the subject of the photo and so still try to paint in with some sort of emotion. But I think this is also tempered greatly by field work. I now see photos differently because I've actually studied and drawn the bird in the field. In the process of drawing in the field I always realize how much I don't know. So I look harder. I think all that affects my artistic sensibility so that when I do happen to work from photos I'm really working from photos but with all the accumulated knowledge of working in the field.

All that aside you look like you're getting back into the swing of things quickly in all this recent work!