Kite Feeding

Example from series of studies made between 18 August and 4 September

Arrived at my latest (favourite) spot in time to put in sky for a kite feeding picture. Flat, blue-grey sky, hint of heavier clouds building on horizon. Sun a weak disk, a neat puncture in the cloud cover leaking light outwards, seeping yellow ochre flooding the wet sky. c.100 kites today and as many spectators. Kites are in molt, frayed tails barbed like streamers behind a rocketship. Primaries droop at awkward right angles which I am almost squeamish to see, realising I unintentionally interpret the whole wing as equivalent to human limbs in my nearest translation or empathy of flight. Kites gather in the trees, some spruces bending under the weight of several birds, the sound of their whistles ricochet  off the still lake and around the arena of trees.

An anticipatory hush infects the waiting crowd once the food is thrown across the feeding area, before the kites gather. They are wary despite their apparent familiarity and punctuation with feeding time day after day, circling tighter and lower until one bird will fold its wings tight back and drop to the floor; more follow twisting in tight corkscrews to the ground. The frenzy is tight and I hear the thwack as birds collide, though with little consequence. Some I notice are bolder stooping straight through the pussy footing flock with the confidence of a peregrine. Others, prefer the benefits of piracy, maybe they lack the confidence to go to ground although I think some occupy their time waiting for the flock to mass for the next feed by stealing on the wing. Every 20 minutes or so the flock regroups above the feeding station with the last bout being between 5.00 and 6.00 (depending on the day) before the kites drift away and the crows move in. On the way home, at Llanbrynmiar I  pass the usual group of kites, probably going to roost, I am sure they have come from the feeding.

Two Colour (um+bs) wash to draw the kites (in later versions intro ru). Concentrate on angle of attack, wing and tail positions, depth of undercarriage, flow and clarity of wash, using the shadow and patterning to define posture and form (although silhouetted from this aspect). Later work uses bins, looking at individuals movements and movement of flock to work up an accurate convincing fluid composition with feel of the frenzy.

cb+ru+qr(sky)um+bs(kite)um+ru/cb+ru/cb+aur/bs+um(land)        

Green Sandpiper

Brief view of Green Sandpiper, a first. Used pencil for first time  in a while, allowing me to finish painting accurately after bird was flushed out of sight by Lapwing. Differences from common are lack of white shoulder, striking white eye ring and  white chequers along edge of covert/wing feathers (not shown here). At least 2 green and 2 common. Flat light turned water surface into white mirror. Generally noticed, light is turning towards more dramatic direction of winter time.

Spider Crab

Print from Martin's Haven drawings. 

az+wb--ru+ty(wb,az)

Spider Crab, First Print

1st attempt at print based on Spider Crab drawings from Martin's Haven (28.06 post). Much in the dark working on this one, but now can see pockets of techniques and colours that could be good and those that I can rethink. 1st plate - cb+ru+(qr). 2nd plate - qr+ny+cb, ru+". Use colour to enhance depth, transparency/mirk. More definate with 1st plate so as to minimise crayon; better colour reactions on 2nd.

Castlemartin - Elegug Stacks

Castlemartin's sea bird colonies are at most times a forbidden zone situated within an MOD on/offshore firing range. Visits have to be timed with pauses in firing; our first opportunity being between 16.30 - 21.30 last Tuesday. Travelling along the South coast we soon begin passing heavy military convoys before hitting the barracks where we turn onto a reinforced concrete lane, pausing to check - no red flags flying. The track 

is direct to the sea, the land is sparse, save for the odd relic to its previous use; a chapel on the skyline and down a lane the shell of an old farm house. Giant scrapes laid by tanks and the sillouttes of Apache helicopters lined up on tarmac, faces like velociraptor, remind us of the short window of dormancy in this normally volatile patch, in which we safely pass to make our findings.  

A dense sea fog had surged well inland that day bringing the kind of drizzle that hangs static in the space, charging the air with an atmosphere of suspense out of which are conjured gloomy shape shifting landscapes. This is how the colony revealed to us as we walked over the brow of the cliff seen in right of this picture, crammed at eye level on the central stack, a moated outpost fortified by shear numbers. Immediately jeapordy soars by in the wraith shape of a peregrine, greater black backed gulls patrol inches above the colony jabbing up and down at auks half their size like dancing puppets until large sections of the colony give way, in a cascade of black and white flight, leaving eggs and young vulnerable.

At eye level the birds whir by on a myriad of flight paths, drawing the various cliff tops, stacks and waves into a complex matrix of activity. On the main stack intimate behaviour can be watched closely at eye level, guillemots bow and nod to one another in constant communication that ripples through the colony in a constant swaying waving motion, accompanied with pulses of verbal gutteral gurgling rolling growls of consternation - oooOOOooAAAaooOOWWW!. From below Kitti-wake!! Kitti-Wake!! calls roll around the walls of sea caves before punching up over the clifftop din in an almighty eruption of volume. Razorbills sky point silently in pairs on the steepest ledges. Squinting through the turbulence of sea and mist, rafts of auks are pushed into view on the rising swell , more and more constellations of black bodies revealed in the time spent staring out over the ocean.

On the last day of our trip the access road reopens for a whole day. We return and paint through a day of sun, strong S Westerly and squally showers. A new aspect from the East is revealed and I enjoy taking in the whole scene from further back this time, taking in the merging movements of sea, birds, light and geology with this painting.

BS+UM. PB+UM - PB+ RU. QR+RU (UM), QR+UM, CY+UM(QR) see notes: Dec2011 - 2012

Spider Crabs, Martin's Haven

Snorkelling; evening onshore breeze, bay sheltered from heavy SW swell with moderate visibility. Low tide. Boulder strewn sea bed and kelp forest. Spider crabs numerous, clinging on to kelp. Kelp sways in current to reveal more crabs; fleshy pink coloured shells, darkening red on edges and around protrusions, roughness contrasting with inky dark black brown, green and purple, rubber smooth weed. 

Fun to draw in negative; charcoal turning velvety slick and deep black underwater. Soon get into rhythm drawing one sketch after another and ferrying each one back to shore in turn. Floating in current, strange to have a still subject and be the one whose moving for a change.

(darkness enveloping crab, roughness of shell - smoothness of weed, receding depth, floating perspectives, barnacles and algae on shell, bulky shell, spikes and pins of measly face, substantial legs and claws everywhere, weed obscuring parts as well. PRINT, composite of drawings bound by weeds, overdraw - in bath?)