Continuing with my enjoyment of painting birds in watercolour, my latest two are a plover and egrets which inhabit the local estuaries and coastal river areas. The plover painting is overall more realistic although the background is not true to the original image. Instead it evolved from broad sweeps with a loaded hake brush on damp paper for the water area. The bird was first masked out so the strokes would flow through. The pebbles in the sand were built up by charging and dripping paint at various stages of wetness. A little palette knife scraping and drybrush added texture.
The foliage and grasses in the egret work were created through dribbling, spattering , blowing and charging the Winsor primaries plus Ultramarine. A rigger brush added free calligraphic marks after the work was dry.
These works continue a frequently recurring theme of mine of contrasting illustrative style painting with free expression…… left and right brained modes of working, or scientifically accurate versus creative happenings……. yin and yang.