Egrets - Final

© Ellen Blonder

The last time I posted progress on this painting, I felt completely stuck. I took a month off to clean the basement and host house guests. Afterward, I finally could face that the sky needed darkening, as did all three cycads in the background. I also redid the foliage to the left near the smaller egret. This finally feels finished.

Egrets, after Three Weeks' Work

© Ellen Blonder

Changes are harder to see now. I did add a plant to the lower left corner, and spent a lot of time refining the big plant in the middle in front of the birds. 

Egrets, Days 16 and 17

© Ellen Blonder

The last couple of days have been slow, gradually shading the feathers on the egret on the right. Once it was done, I decided to refine the branch coming in from the right. Next I'll add light and shadow to it. The lower left corner remains unresolved.

Egrets, Days 14 and 15

© Ellen Blonder

Progress feels slow as I paint in the grass and add details to the foreground plants. As I do, I also need to adjust the whites in the egret feathers. I'm not sure yet what to add to the lower left corner, if anything.

Egrets, Day 12

© Ellen Blonder

I had originally intended to put the egrets in a grassy field, but I can't seem to help myself adding other plants. I'm just getting started.

Egrets, Day 11

© Ellen Blonder

After a week and a half of houseguests, I'm finally painting again, mostly refining the shading on feathers and darkening legs and grass.

Egrets, Days 9 and 10

© Ellen Blonder

Big changes. I read an article recently about a relaxed brain being necessary to making intuitive decisions, so I went for a walk to try to figure out what was bothering me about this painting. I realized the egrets were too much the same scale, making the whole painting feel flat. I redrew the one on the left, and moved it away from the foreground. I'm still not sure if this is going to work, but it feels better.

Egrets, Day 8

© Ellen Blonder

More work on the leaves today. 

Egrets, Day 7

© Ellen Blonder

Slowly filling in leaf details. 

Egrets, Day 6

© Ellen Blonder

Today was about adding details to the cycad trunks and darkening the background.

Egrets, Day 5

© Ellen Blonder

At the end of a day painting leaves, I wanted to give a trunk some dimension. There's no way to paint this without simplifying drastically. The birds have to be painted later; they're going to look rough for a while.

Egrets, Day 4

© Ellen Blonder

Filling in leaves... This is going to take a while.

Egrets, Day 3

© Ellen Blonder

For a change, I'm going to try painting the leaves in back before the ones in front, so I don't have to paint in between so much. Much of the cycad on the right will be covered eventually.

Egrets, Day 2

© Ellen Blonder

Figuring out the right shade of blue for the sky before I get too far on the cycad leaves. The leaves that I started are way too bright, and the values of the blue and green are too close.

Egrets, Day 1

© Ellen Blonder

Our Kauai friends let me know when they were power-mowing their field so I could take reference photos for a cow egret painting. I've long noticed them flocking to any mowing equipment, which must agitate all the bug life to create a feast. I ended up taking over 200 photographs, although many were a blur.

I've been sketching from the photos for a while, and had a whole separate layout that included nine birds, but I settled on this, with two birds because if felt like a stronger layout. Here's the sketch transferred to a 22 x 27-inch canvas with the first part of underpainting. I plan to put several cycads in the background.