I started with Prismacolor colored pencils on Strathmore Windpower vellum Bristol 14″ x 17″ paper. However, the gray of the water takes up about half of the space, and I decided I didn’t want to do all of that in colored pencil. My arm would have been killing me!!! 😉 So I decided to paint the water and some of the Snowy Egret with acrylics. I used colored pencil and a little bit of acrylic on the bird, but decided to paint the rocks in watercolor since I have more colors to work with in watercolors. So this is why the paper curled slightly. I have never painted on regular thick paper, only pre-stretched watercolor paper or watercolor paper blocks or canvas. This was a different experience for sure.

I painted this Snowy Egret spontaneously from a photo my husband took ot it by the river where we used to live over 15 years ago! I eyeballed it for proportion and didn’t worry about getting it to look exactly like the photo. I have saved this photo and others from some of his old photography thinking I might draw or paint them one day. So the other day I was bored and looking for something to start on and found this in my stash of “project to do someday” photos. Hey, maybe I should label that envelope with just that title! I’m thinking of doing a series of different river and ocean birds. I really should live by the ocean……..