Sparrowhawk

Made a comment, pressed reply, and it disappeared...... It's either the whiskey or the website, dunno which.... What I SAID, anyway, was that this is a fantastic painting, beautifully observed. So I'll say it again, and if necessary a third and fourth time, because it's so wonderful.

Magnificent Paul! I have spent the best part of the day painting a Mistle Thrush. I was reasonably pleased with it until I saw your beautiful Sparrowhawk!

Thank you Robert and Christine for you lovely comments. Don't know what happen there Robert but fortunately all looks ok now. I can't wait to see your Mistle Thrush Christine.

PS - Paul: I'd be interested to see an article on your techniques in The Artist - eg, the brands of paint, the palette, the brushes you use; how you start your paintings. And it would make a change from the same artists cropping up in The Artist time after time - he's a lovely painter, but I did get quite fed up with Paul Riley some time ago, when I last bought the mag regularly. I make this provocative point to attract the attention of Sally Bulgin - a bit of a dig in the ribs sometimes helps......

Hi Robert, I'd love to do an article within The Artist or Leisure Painter something I have never done being an amateur artist. I wonder where you would start.............

This is truly an excellent painting of a sparrowhawk from the feathers and face of the bird through to the super definition in the tree stump

P.S. Paul, just a suggestion following on from Roberts comment, write an article including his suggestions and submit it to The Artist yourself, either by post or online it would be one of the most popular editions of the magazine, many would like to hear how you go about achieving such good work i am sure.

Yes: Ros is right. Just write it - look: I was a journalist: I'd be happy to edit it for you, not least because I could learn from it. I've done this for another of our POL artists though, and produced what I thought was a good article for LP, and it's never been published. You can't guarantee publication - though I think the article I helped to edit was a damn' sight better than 90% of what's appeared in LP since, to which I no longer subscribe: not for that reason (I hope) but because I think the magazine has descended into the plainly silly and irrelevant, and I don't see that changing until the present editor goes. The Artist ought to be a different matter; the snag there is that its editor refers broadly amateur, teach-yourself type articles to LP: which then doesn't know what to do with them. Perhaps we need a magazine which actually meets the needs of artists. But who is going to fund and produce it? (PS - I'm being deliberately provocative: but I don't think those who make the decisions actually read these threads. Which is a pity.

Totally agree with the request, I've admired all your work, and as like Robert , would absolutely love to see an article of the way you capture, organise, construct and create your paintings. I can certainly understand why it takes the time that it does to complete, but is this just the painting or the total work, my guess is that it's just the painting. What ever your work is not that of an amateur, but extremly professional.

Ros, Robert & Peter, I'm just about to head off to bed ready for work tomorrow so I will compose a message tomorrow night on here. But just to say thank you to everyone for your fantastic encouraging comments. I will give the article idea some consideration tomorrow and may ask Robert or my partner to fine tune it, sadly I am not that efficient with the writing side of things, just give me a brush! :-)

Paul, it would be great if you and Robert produced an article about your work. Maybe you could take photographs of various stages of one of your works and went on to explain how you went about the process from start to finish. By way of alternative a selection of finished works with a general description of the processes involved might please the editor equally well.

Absolutely superb Paul and ditto to all the above suggestions and comments.

The preciseness and detail in your work is quite outstanding. This is a really eye-catching portrait of a noble bird. Wonderful work.

Phew, where do I start? I head out to work for the day after a nice Christmas and painting break and I get all these lovely comments, something I'm certainly not used to! Just for a little bit of info I've created a FaceBook page and I've now placed this Sparrowhawk as a WIP. If you do visit my page would you mind 'sharing' my page as this may help to promote my paintings and hopefully one day paint part time if not full time - a dream I've had for many a year! The address is: ---https://www.facebook.com/thedevonartistpaul ---- I'm posting one part of the process each evening until the final scan so only POL have seen the finished painting -Thank you!! Ros P - yes I would like to write an article with photos and the way I work from start to finish and with advice from everyone on here I will definitely do this very soon! Hopefully it will be accepted, mind you I may need to resubscribe to The Artist mag, I currently only get the Leisure Painter. Peter Nelson - I wonder how you class a professional artist compared to an amateur? The painting process took around 30 hours not including the preparation, starting at 9am through until 9pm, fortunately my partner was away for a few days not that she would mind. There are also the hours sat in a home made bird hide in my back garden with net curtains :-) taking lot's of photos for hopefully my next painting, I didphotograph my Sparrowhawk through the stages but found that the photos were a little dark, even using the flash and my daylight lamp. Fiona & Thea thank you for your kind words.

This is quite a treasure trove of paintings of birds,all of which are superb.Like yourself Sparrowhawks sometimes visit our back garden.

Thank you David, even though Sparrowhawks do go for the little birds in our garden, it is obviously natural but still it's a pleasure to see them.

How exciting, I hope that your new venture is a great success. I like how you paint from your own photographs/sketches. How about aim the artical at twitcher magazines too as the process from bird hides to your lovely paintings is interesting too.

That's a great idea as well Sarah! I've got a lot to think about over the next few weeks with all the recommendations and each one I will try to follow up, especially the suggestion of submitting a WIP tutorial to The Artist magazine.

Again a stunning portrait Paul! I hope you do get published if you submit an article, it would be lovely to see!!!

Thank you Jenny! I am currently taking photos of a Blue Tit I am working on so hopefully the photos will come out ok, hard to say until I put them on this computer. :-)

Following the idea of a possible article to the Artist. I hate to mention a rival organisation but have you of the Society of All Artists SAA? You can join for a small fee and have a personal gallery on the site. They have a magazine called 'Paint' to which you can submit letters / articles for publication,also competitions. They have helped several artists to become quite successful and I'm sure would be interested in your work. I enjoyed looking at your facebook page by the way.

Hi Stephen, yes I am a member of the SAA and occasionally post on there as well. The problem I have is trying to find the time to visit a variety of web site forums including FaceBook, Painters on Line and SAA. I can see that there are a number of ways to try and get your work published including the SAA and this will be on my list of things I will do. It's just........finding the time away from work, family and painting! :-(