DAY 26 Red Egret

Red Egret
DAY 26  Bad Feather Day - Having lived in Florida for so many years I thought I had seen a lot of water birds.  We used to have herons and egrets in our back yard.  But when Sandy Scott, a photographer from PMP, posed this red egret I had to give it a try.  When I do references of things I don't know a lot about it makes me want to research, and I found that the habitat for this bird is the Caribbean, so no wonder I hadn't seen one in the wild.  

The next thing I wanted to try to bring some life and looseness to what would normally be a static picture.  So I took some liberty with the bird's coloring, wasn't so particular with the feathers and added some additional colors and slights foam in the water to make it appear it is a windy day.   Actually his unusual spiny feathers are probably mating plumage.  

I also wanted to try working colored pencil with pan pastels - so primarily this is a pan pastel picture with some of the detail coming from colored pencils.  This was on Art Spectrum sanded paper, and I got to say I really don't get the effect.  The colored pencils ended up removing the pastel, ok, maybe my touch was a bit heavy, but ......

Thanks  much for stopping by and taking a look.

Comments

Helen said…
Ha ha ha... Love the title... "Bad Feather Day!" Made me laugh!
September 26, 2018 at 9:50 PM
carol edan said…
Nice title! She doesn't look fluttered. All your pastel vs pencils doesn't show!
September 27, 2018 at 2:25 AM
Nelvia said…
Glad you liked it and he does look rather rumpled doesn't he.
September 27, 2018 at 9:16 AM
Nelvia said…
Yes, I don't know if it was my support or not, but the pencils didn't really play nice. I thought the details would be pencil and show as being sharp, but all they really did was take off the pastel. So... guess I will try again as they really should work together. Might work better on regular paper and not sanded.
September 27, 2018 at 9:17 AM
Mellowood Gallery said…
Thanks for the chuckle Nelvia - a nice way to start the day. He is so cute and I think the added colours make the piece more interesting.
September 27, 2018 at 12:11 PM
Sheila said…
I love it :) Dave just told me that if I had not mentioned the faults, he would not have noticed. And the same is true here. This is lovely and perfect in my eyes. I love the softness of pastel, the strokes in the water, the delicate feathers. Lovely work Nelvia :)
September 27, 2018 at 6:26 PM
Nelvia said…
Good I am glad it added and I didn’t overdo. Trying to bring some of my new thoughts back to my regular woek
September 28, 2018 at 7:21 AM
Nelvia said…
Thanks Sheila, I always appreciate your thoughts. It is valuable input that helps me see through others reactions. As you know I love pastels and it is always good to g back to work with them
September 28, 2018 at 7:24 AM
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