Workshop - Painting a Snowy Egret

Today we almost completed a painting, but we will have to finish it tomorrow. This is a fun one! A snowy egret in a marsh type background.

We started by filling in the bird shape totally with mask. Then we painted much of the background with blowing and stroking into reed and bullrush shapes.

Next we removed the mask on the bird, then masked only feather strokes on the bird again. Then we painted the bird, leaving some of it white.

As I was leaving the building, a big wave cloud stretched overhead to the horizon. I think they are called stacked reticulated clouds, but I think wave cloud works well. They are so interesting looking, and have soft edges like fur.