Great White Heron Watercolor

I am rendering this Great White Heron from a photograph by Elise Beattie who teaches, “Fearless Painting” classes. Now working on different approaches to The first post about this in a pen & ink study.

Step-By-Step Watercolor

Great White Heron Sketch — Layout Pencil Sketch

While studying the picture, I kept feeling as though the best part of the picture is missing. Do you ask, “Would that be?” Well, the reflection of the bird on the water would be quite beautiful. Being an artist allows me to go ahead with adding the missing piece in as I render this subject. I believe it is called an artist license.

Render Sun Reflection

Watercolor requires that you start with where you want to reserve white, then begin laying down the lightest colors first. In this that will be where the sun is laying on the water.

Background Reeds

I start to lay in the reeds behind and am careful to avoid where my Great White Heron is. Must preserve a pristine white area to work on later for the center-of-attention character.

As I add in the reeds on the right side additional lily pond-type leaves are added to help the composition move in a circular motion.

Render Water

Using royal and cerulean blues I begin to put the ripples of the water in.

Reflections

A reflection is simply the original image turned upside down on the water. After turning it we need to take into account that the surface reflecting the image is not flat. As in this water scene with its many ripples that cut up and distort the image. The more I apply the reed reflections and watercolors I begin to lose the heron reflection so I apply a soft gray there that helps me to see it better.

This next step is scary as I apply a wash over all the water using ultramarine blue.

At this point, I am darkening reflections and making details and adjustments. I should be able to finish this image this week. When I complete it I will be sure to post it so you can see it. Happy painting.

Christmas Music Booklet

Christmas Is Not Cancelled!

I have put together a Christmas Music Booklet for carolling. It is full of many, many lyrics and some illustrations. Using the China flu as a political strong-arm to force us into isolation is just sinful at this time of year. Any attempt to make our entire population live in isolated fear should be considered a crime against humanity because that is what it is. Humans are social animals requiring interaction with others in our community to keep us from going insane.

Do you enjoy singing together at Christmas?

I believe that our Constitution still guarantees us some rights and one of them is the separation of church and government. Therefore, I intend to do Christmas carol “ing” this year. Common sense will be necessary and we are definitely not planning to kiss strangers, or spread colds. Observing normal courtesy’s… keeping spit and body fluids to ourselves and staying home if you are sick.

No you can’t have a sip of my hot cider!

Jesus Laughing chalk — working with chalk on black paper

This illustration is a chalk drawing of Jesus laughing, which is on the cover of the Christmas Songbook I last printed in 2011. If you have a copy of the old booklet, you will find that there are a few new illustrations along with more songs. At this point, the booklet has the lyrics for 74 songs. The file is not a free downloadable booklet, and I am requesting a $2 donation to cover printing costs. I have spent a lot of time researching lyrics, followed by typing and illustrating.

Christmas Music

If you are interested in getting copies of the CHRISTMAS MUSIC BOOKLET this year please send me a note, and I will include your quantities with the order? Please contact me by Nov 20th if you would like to be included in this order.

Ranting Dust MASKS Blahhhh!

Utter Stupidity Blahhhh!

Ranting dust-mask wearing. The Governor is wrong to deny Christians the right to participate in celebrating our religion. Singing at Christmas is a way that we have celebrated the birth of Our Lord for centuries. Attending church and singing should not be something an elected official in Seattle has a right to monitor or allow/disallow.

Requiring that everyone wear a dust mask for extended periods of time as we live in forced isolation (except for the political officials) is not a viable solution to the problem of C-o-v-i-d-1-9. It is not a solution of any kind. Our population grows increasingly weaker due to in-activity & isolation, with increases in depression and economic fearfulness. Wearing dust masks for extended periods of time is downright ridiculous. It is not beneficial to maintaining good health. Masks worn, are not typically sterile, and they decrease the free flow of fresh oxygen as they recirculate moist contaminated exhaled breath. Can you spell I-N-F-E-C-T-I-O-N?

Astronauts Won’t Wear a Dust Mask

The only way a mask could protect me from contracting China Flu is if I were able to suit up in a clean sealed system similar to what auto painters, hazmat clean-up workers, or astronauts use. A fully-sealed suit with a contained bottled air supply. If we are dressed like Neil Armstrong then we are in masks that are truly safe.

Take a good look at your face mask.

We are talking about a thin cloth dust mask protecting us from molecules of virus or bacteria on particles in the air and on surfaces. Here is your sign. Yep. You can’t see individual pathogens with the naked-human-eye. Think about that. The media shows us the virus cells as seen-through-a-microscope (these guys are tiny buggers). Do you believe that wearing a face dust mask made of cloth that you can see-thru, is going to screen these microscopic particles out of the air you breathe? Dream on… I wore these dust masks every time I had to break out concrete on a jobsite. Yep. 8 years of wearing these buggers and believe me I fully understand what they are capable of screening out. They have a hard time screening out dust let alone microscopic stuff. BS and more BS from an ever more ignorant bunch of politicians.

I’m sorry, I digress (no I am not sorry).

Studying Figures

I began studying figures again this week. This is my first 7″ x 10″ watercolor on 140lb paper from this life-drawing class that started yesterday. I was worried but found that I am happy with the lighting in the rendering because it does appear like it was, on the model.

So, what is the news ? I attended a session on life drawing on Monday night. Wow, what a refreshing exercise that is for me. Drawing from a live human being really brings the drawing skills out to play.

The model can’t hold still forever, so you have to get those pencils to move fast enough to get the image down before the timer goes off. It feels a little stressed but so creative at the same time. I left feeling almost as if I had just had group art therapy and was ready to tackle the world. Well, at least tackle the art world anyhow. I had forgotten how much fun this is and how great it is to work on our skills with other artists.

Birds of a feather… really love to hang out together. There is absolutely no jealousy or negative criticism, just helpful suggestions. I love it. An artist needs time with birds of the same feather. When I surround myself with creatives just like me, I can verify that other artists have the same crazy logic as me. We look at where we want to draw from and analyze the lighting and positioning of the model. Then setup to try and get what we see down on our canvas or paper as fast as we can. We all like to dress comfortably. We have an abundance of pencils and lots of paintbrushes in our tool bags or boxes. It is a part of our art addiction.

Hopefully, this kind of study will improve my figurative renderings in the future.

Different Approaches to White Heron

Challenge

Finding different approaches to painting this beautiful Great White Heron is what our Fearless Painting class guru, Elise Beattie, has challenged us over the weekend. This is some beautiful photography Elise Beattie!

If we choose to accept this assignment…. this challenge will self-destruct in 5 seconds.

Initially, I do a quick black and white study in my sketchbook with a gel pen (nothing special).

sketch Great White Heron — sketch of Great White Heron for a watercolor

I scrounge around in the studio to find a leftover piece of watercolor paper from a project to work on. This simply means there is a surprise ink drawing on the back of the sheet for anyone purchasing the image. Kind of a two-for-one prize for the art collector, you know. I decided on a much closer view for this Heron rendering in watercolor. The dimensions are taken off of my B&W sketch.

When I want accuracy, I have to grease those crazy artist mind gears. I break out a tool from the old drafting days that will ensure correct results twice as big on the watercolor paper. The tool I use is called a “Precision Deluxe Proportional Divider” (made in Germany).

Would you like a tutorial about how to use this tool in another post on this blog? Leave me a comment if you do. It is unlikely that anyone is dying to learn how to do this though.

Proportional Divider in German — Prop Divider instructions in German

On the instruction sheet, there are some really useful instructions in German on the flip side, just in case you were wondering. How is your German? Mine is terrible.

I do anticipate making a third layout today using a different approach with acrylics on a canvas board, but I haven’t gotten there yet. First, I need to finish my piano practice.

Online Fearless Painting Class

Painting

I have not been known to be very fearful as far as my art is concerned, but I recently signed up for a class called Fearless Painting. What are my worst fears? Being an artist is what I am and always will be, but…

How do I sell the art that I am always creating?

After facing some “real” health issues, a lot of activities have had to be re-learned. It was noticeable that my creativity felt stymied. I really needed a little boost. This &#(@^$% quarantine is still in effect, so getting a weekly in-person class becomes impossible. I noticed that a friend of mine named Elise Beattie, from Spokane Watercolor Society was offering a two-hour online class on Tuesday nights through the Spokane Community College which I signed up for.

Fearless Painting with Elise Beattie

I am not quite finished with the acrylic “abstract” & a landscape of a “mountain view” that were started in last Tuesday night’s online Fearless Painting Class. We are using a primary color pallet allowing tinted MONOCHROMATIC values. Fun, fun, fun! I love value studies.

Jesus Focus

Dreams

A Jesus focus is what I saw as I was dreaming last night. He was standing there in the wind saying, “Where is your focus? Focus on Me.”

Many of my paintings and drawings are derived from dream inspirations from the night before. If I go to bed with something bothering me, I can look forward to finding answers in visions and thoughts arriving vividly with full color and brightness.