Mr. Heron Goes Wading
8x8" palette knife oil painting on gesso board

I haven't been posting much on this blog lately because I am generally not much for words, but I have learned from people's blogs in the past so maybe I can say something useful.  I started this one by triple toning the board with burnt sienna, burnt umber and red oxide acrylics. This makes the edges more interesting when not painted all the way to the end. I have seen some paintings I really like that are done this way. Curt Butler is a great example. Of course I didn't leave as much edge showing as I had initially intended, but I am working toward that the more I paint. The heron was relatively easy to paint. I lightly drew him in by touching the side of the blade to the board to get his outline, then I painted his darkest areas and the darkest areas of the background. I wasn't sure how I was going to do the background. The reference photo  did not show the water being so wind-swept, but the masses of reflected trees created a vertical jumble. I thought keeping the background lines more horizontal would accentuate the height of the heron and the length of his legs, so in the end I like the verticality of the heron and the reeds. I used cerulean blue, ultramarine, yellow ochre, and cad yellow pale and cad red.