Steph' Thorpe

@stephbirdart.bsky.social

2810 Followers 3151 Following

Artist who paints the waifs and stray birds that arrive in the UK. Modelmaker, gardener and Derby County fan. 🚫No AI🚫

A blue model real steam engine running on the garden railway.
A digital painting of trees against the bright sky with the sun behind.
Set of watercolour and graphite illustrations on a White A4 paper. They are of a Long-tailed Shrike which is a medium sized bird with a small hooked bill and a long tail. It is pale underneath with the lower flanks orange buff, and grey head and upper back fading into buff orange on the lower back and rump. It has darker wings and a black bandit mask.
A Long-tailed Shrike done on an iPad with procreate
Sketchbook pages of drawings and watercolour of a Long-tailed Shrike. A medium sized passerine, with a black bandit mask, grey head and upper back. Orange buff lower back, rump and flanks with the rest of the underside white cream. The wings are brown black and the tertials and secondaries have crisp orange white fringes. It has a long black brown tail with white outer tail feathers. The bird has a neat but hooked beak as befits a tiny predator.
Painting of a snow covered scene with seven Bullfinches perched amongst twigs.
A green narrow gauge Ruston sits outside a low relief shed with blue doors on my large scale, 45mm gauge model railway
Photograph of one of my live steam locomotives. On my garden railway.
A male Blackbird perched on a TV aerial attached to a brick chimney.
A screenshot of a facebook reply. The name is blanked out but the profile pick is the Reform UK logo. In reply to an article about David Hockney the post reads "Who?" There is a reply saying "you wouldn't know. It's about culture".
Tornado signature on Weather Front app (which is excellent).
Football and goal
A bright yellow warbler bird facing right and perched on a blue rope,
A bird report with an illustration of birds on the beach. 2 Dunlins at feeding with 2 Oyster archers and a first winter Long-tailed Skua is flying over the sea behind.
A Little Ringed Plover is standing just in front of a Little Tern on some mud. There isn’t a lot of difference in size
Dangling boob clouds
A Marmora's Warbler painted sideways on. It is a small grey warbler with a red eye ring perched on heather.
A Spotted Crake standing in water facing the viewer.
A little group of plants seen from above looking down, mostly green leaves of different shapes and textures, with the sparse, almost ethereal white flowers of a Cow Parsley hovering over them and the odd tiny pink Herb Robert flower.
A medium to large sized gull with a red and black bill standing in grass
Set of sketches of a Great tailed Grackle I saw at Speke Hall Liverpool. The bird is mainly black with blue and green tones, which is iridescent. It has a ridiculous long tail and a completely mad expression caused by a staring pale eye!
A bright yellow and green bird with two white wing bars is perched on some rocks at the waterside. It is facing the camera and showing off its beautiful grey blue head and bright white throat.
A bright yellow and green bird with two white wing bars is perched on some rocks on a shoreline, facing the camera showing off its beautiful blue grey head and bright white throat.
Photo showing a dark cloud line with a sharp break of sunlight and blue sky, above buildings before, in the distance another line of storms.
Page of a sketchbook showing watercolour and pencil sketches of a female Hooded Merganser. A small sawbill type duck with a ridiculous ginger brown crest at the rear of its head.
Photograph of the book The New Birds of the Sheffield Area. There is a photograph of a singing Wood Warbler on the cover.
A screenshot of an article from The Independent on Facebook detailing the sad deaths of 4 desperate humans who drowned in the English Channel as they tried for a better life. There are over a thousand laughing emojis out of only 3.5 thousand.
Horrific message from Trump on his social media "Tuesday will be power plant day, and bridge day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!! Open the fuckin' Strait, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell - Just Watch! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. Trump
A page of identification notes on separating European Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff in spring. It shows two very similar green brown and lemony warblers with notes around them.
Two European warbler species that are very alike drawn and painted, with notes around them.
A photograph of my temporary work table with a large scale (7/8ths-22.5mm to the foot), unfinished live steam locomotive with a coach behind.
A drawing of a Great tailed Grackle facing right and forward on a white background.
A grey mug containing tea next to my drawing board. We cannot see the tea because a round, cream plastic rubber type cover with a purple coloured knob on it is protecting the contents from my brushes (long pause), I hope.
A digital drawing of a male Siberian Thrush on grass
Three paintings, each showing two warblers. One Willow Warbler and five Chiffchaffs in total. Each bird faces right to left.
Two small warbler birds facing right to left. They are two plumage tone studies of Siberian Chiffchaffs.
QR code for my railway and modelling insta account @stephsrailways
Two cats, a ginger and a tuxedo stare moodily at the camera. The photo is sepia and grainy and set up as a record cover with "The Dinner Wanters" band name in the top right. The single name "hunger" at the bottom left. A red sticker proclaims New single in the bottom right.
Large roll of brown paper tape that has water activated glue on one side.
A4 portrait format. Consists of 3 poses of a Song Sparrow in watercolour and graphite surrounded by field notes. There is a little graphite drawing top right of the bird in flight. Song Sparrows are small passerines with lots of streaking. There is a prominent dark spot in the centre of the breast where streaking coalesces.
Video of snow falling on a street scene. A couple of inches is on the ground.
A sketchbook page showing a set of sketches of a Horned Lark. A small passerines bird with a yellow throat, black mask and moustache, a broad pale supercillium surmounted by a thin black line and two black small raised pointy feathers, giving it the name Horned. The ear coverts are washed grey and the rest of the upper parts are brown faintly streaked. The bill is sharp tipped and neat. The underside is pale with buff washed flanks, some small streaking on the shoulder and a black crescent across the breast.
A page of a sketchbook showing a set of sketches of a Horned Lark. A small passerines with a black face mask and moustache yellow on the throat and grey on the ear coverts. It has two tiny sticking up feathers as part of a black line above the pale supercillium which gives it the name. The rest of the bird is buff brown with a little streaking. And a white belly. It has a black band across the centre of it's chest.
A Cadburys Cream Egg.
The word slapdash.
Sketchbook page of watercolour and graphite drawings of a Yellow Warbler. A bright yellow warbler surprisingly!
A painting of 3 Bramblings, beautiful orange and black birds with the words Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year across the top.
A small warbler perches on a red stem of a winter Dogwood bush. There are more stems of the bush in the background. The bird is a Chiffchaff, but is pale greyish and buff in colour with the only green tones on the wing and tail feathers.
Stuart Adamson, lead singer, guitar virtuoso and amazing lyricist of Big Country is standing on stage at a microphone singing and playing his guitar. A caption reads 11th April 1958 to 16th December 2001. Never forgotten. The music goes on. RIP. A poets heart.
Watercolour of an immature White-billed Diver swimming to the right.
Set of sketches of a immature male Scarlet Tanager in Yorkshire UK in November 2024. The bird is a large finch, mostly yellow green with slightly browner wings and a newly moulted in black patch on the "shoulders".
Piece of white paper with a pencil lying across some very scratchy, scribbles of graphite showing an approximation of a wader with a ridiculous spoon shaped bill.
Finished A4 page of paintings of the White-throated Needletail that was on the UK east coast a couple of weeks ago. There is one main painting showing the underside of the bird with it's brown body, black wings, pale throat and forehead and the U shaped white area at the rear of the body under the short square tail. There are several smaller paintings surrounding this main picture showing various poses.
Sketches of a White throated Needletail, a species of large swift. They are in graphite and watercolour. The swift is large bodied with scythe shaped wings and a small stubby square tail. The body is brown with a pale throat, large white horseshoe shape under the tail area. The upper parts have a white patch on the back. The wings are black with areas of blue green iridescence. The bird even looks fast!
Set of sketches in a sketchbook of an eclipse drake Ring-necked Duck. They were painted in dull, flat light. The duck has a slightly peaked rear crown, a general brown colouration with square paler patches on the cheeks and around the bill base. The pale flanks are a rather smooth lighter brown with the ghost of the vertical pale line at the front edge of the flank patch. The tertials are much more worn and paler along with the tail. The breast feathers are thinly fringed paler. The gold eye stands out.
A blue model steam engine with a white cab roof, called Sylvia. She is built to 7/8ths of an inch to the foot scale (works out at 22.5mm to the foot). It is running on my garden railway (45mm gauge track) so is a model narrow gauge locomotive, 2foot gauge at 1:1 like the Ffestiniog etc.