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.

Plant Study

© Ellen Blonder

Does anyone know the name of this plant? I saw it growing in a large pot in Kauai, and loved its colorful ribbon-like leaves. This is a colored pencil study of it from my sketchbook.

Speckled Rooster - Final

© Ellen Blonder

I always seem to do the background last. One of these days I should lay something out completely before I begin painting, but I don't seem to work that way naturally. I'm happy putting this rooster in a lusher environment that where I found him, wandering around a strip mall parking lot where we went to pick up a take-out dinner in Kapa'a. 

Speckled Rooster 10

© Ellen Blonder

Adding a blue sky always changes the balance, but I can't seem to resist. Getting close to finished now.

Speckled Rooster 9

© Ellen Blonder

 © Ellen Blonder

Nice to be painting again after a short break. 

Speckled Rooster 8

© Ellen Blonder

I spent all day working on the upper left corner of the painting. I don't know what the giant-leaved plant is, but I loved its ridges and cupped shape. The tree trunk is something I saw covered with moss, then planted with staghorn and other ferns. 

Speckled Rooster 7 - Anthuriums

© Ellen Blonder

The last couple of days, I've been working on the anthuriums in the lower left corner. They're actually darker, but I took some artistic license. I may mute them after I've gotten more painted.

Speckled Rooster 6

© Ellen Blonder

Now that the rooster is pretty much done, I can start on the flora. This guy was fun to paint because there was so much going on with his feathers.