Black and Whites; October 2009

Grey Herons

Chough

Yet more ink drawing now completed, the most recent two scanned and posted above, again done on paper with felt tipped technical pens of various sizes..

Black and Whites; October 2009

Bluethroat; 1st Calender in Autumn; Felt-tipped technical Pen.

Adult Tree Sparrow; Felt-tipped Technical Pen.

Now working on a series of Black and White illustrations for an up and coming publication back in Ireland, a couple here. Both with fine felt tip technical drawing pens...

Stonechat on Fuschia; 7th October 2009

Finished Painting; Stonechat on Fuschia; (18"x14")

The major elements quickly blocked in on this piece...

Early stages, simple blue background tone blocked in, cutout sketch seen here helps me with composition, so easy to just move it around until it's right, then draw into the picture....

Stonchat on Fuschia; Acrylic on Board; 18"x14"

The latest here again, a rather small acrylic of a Stonechat, this one from a sketch done on Cape Clear Island in August...

Autumn Tree Sparrows; Collage

The finished painting, shot in good light...

Darks added in the background to create depth, branches rendered...

Coloured tissue the main addition here for the leaves...

Early stages, paint plastered on!


Autumn Tree Sparrows; Collage; 18"x14".

Coloured Crepe Paper, Tissue paper and Acrylic Paint. Latest colour piece....

Latest Sketches; September 2009

Tree Sparrow; Graphite Stick

Jay collecting acorns; Angarn.

Reed Bunting in thistle...

Reed Buntings..

A few more recent sketches here from the past couple of weeks, will be working on some collage Tree Sparrows soon, watch this space...

Great Shearwaters; Cape Clear Island; August 2009

About 50 Great Shearwaters were seen over the week by myself, having not seen the species in ten years I was thrilled to see them again, without a doubt the best of the seabirds found in european waters for me....

Gannets; Cape Clear Island; August 2009

A selection of Gannets sketches taken over the course of a week on the islands. Thousands seen passing Blanan, often within a few metres range...

Cape Clear Island; August 2009

Willow Warbler, 1st Calender Year.

Shag juvenile.

Choughs in flight.

Rock Pipit juvenile.


A few more sketches from my notebook taken over the week on Cape Clear Island...

New Watercolour; Great Crested Grebe

Evening Reflections; Great Crested Grebe (22"x12")

Watercolour on paper, again a developed field sketch from last year. Apalling weather here in sweden at the minute, it does at least help me to work on developing a growing backlog of fieldwork...

New Watercolour; Little Ringed Plover

Little Ringed Plover; Watercolour on paper (18"x12")

Developed from a field sketch posted here on the blog last summer....

Finished Painting; Autumn Woodlark

Autumn Woodlark; Finished Canvas. (30"x10") Acrylic Paint.

Detail from painting....

The latest finished piece, a Woodlark depicted in autumn grasses. Heavy use of paint by means of a pallette knife a feature of this piece, adds a lot of interest and helped me to avoid getting bogged down in detail with regard to rendering the grasses. Limited palette using just six colours including Neutral Tint and Titanium Thite. Raw Sienna, Olive Green, Cobalt Blue and Cadium Yellow the main pigments used...

Hobby and Emperor Dragonfly; New Painting.

Hobby and Emperor Dragonfly; Finished Painting; 36"x24"; Acrylic on Canvas.

Detail from the finished painting....

The bird blocked in over the sky...

The first stage complete. A couple of heavy coats of sky blue applied and left to dry before I went back in and added the cloud....


My latest painting, a fairly large canvas this one. The scene was inspired by my trip to Östra Styran a few weeks ago where I watched four of these brilliant little falcons hunting dragonflies over the reedbeds. Super sight and have wanted to paint it ever since.

Goldeneye Watercolour

Latest small watercolour; Goldeneye and Brood.

Developed from earlier ink sketch....

Blyth's Reed Warbler, 13th June 2009

Some of this morning sketches from Djurgarden of a rarity, my first Blyth's Reed Warblers. Two males have taken territory at the site less than 100 metres apart! Plenty of photos of the bird on the sister blog along with some notes on the birds key ID features...

Lates Sketches, 7th June 2009

Goldeneye mother and brood, compositional sketch from a thumbnail, this to be developed into a colour acrylic...

Woodlark

Hobby, from photographs taken in late May....

Hobby, from photos taken in late May

Red Backed Shrike, male bird.

Lesser Whitethroat page...


Some of my recent sketches here, working on developing the Hobbies further, the aim to produce a large canvas of these birds hunting. Goldeneye next on the list for canvas though...

Black and Whites; May 2009

Golden Oriole

Night Heron

Whinchat Female

Whinchat Female

Golden Oriole


My latest black and white work for a publication back home on Ireland, all done with black ballpoint pen, a favourite medium of mine.