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!
carol edan said…
Nice title! She doesn't look fluttered. All your pastel vs pencils doesn't show!
Nelvia said…
Glad you liked it and he does look rather rumpled doesn't he.
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.
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.
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 :)
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
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

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