Heron on Crescent Watercolor Board

 Heron on Crescent Watercolor Board

First draw the heron onto the watercolor board. You should be able to erase as normal, but gently.

Go over the edges with a candle or wax crayon. This is to prevent too much water from getting onto the sides and warping or separating the paper from the support. Take care not to get wax on the painting area.

Use masking fluid on the areas you want to remain white, especially the delicate feathering on the outside of the body. Don't go heavy on the masking fluid, as it can tear the paper when removing.

When the masking fluid is dry, you can paint in your background.

Painting the bird will be a lot like painting on regular paper, so you will be able to glaze color over color without lifting the underpainting.

For the sunset background, I wet from the horizon up. Be sure your paint is completely dissolved or you can get streaks such as the red on the left, and it can't be lifted. I painted yellow at the horizon line, then magenta, then cerulean blue for the top of the sky. I wanted it to blend better than it did. I should have kept the paper wetter. This board does not seem to  blend well. I could also have covered the board with lifting Prep or sizing to make it more cooperative, but didn't think of it at the time.

For the water, I began at the horizon line and worked down: yellow, magenta, blue. While it was still wet, I tried some plastic wrap over the color to create a watery look and allowed it to dry. (Not the masking fluid is still on the bird)

I began painting the heron's body with a gray made from French ultramarine and burnt sienna. I darkened the patch on the head and underbelly.

I removed the masking fluid on the legs and wings. I painted the bill with warm yellow and orange. I used the same color on the legs. I shaded the neck with blue on the right side. 

I painted in the eye and created some volume in the legs. I still have a bit of finishing to do. I'm going to spatter Miskit into the yellow, then paint some greens over it. The I'm going to quiet down the water a little bit. 

I wanted this to look more like the wetlands near me. In the spring yellow flowers pop up, and when the area gets flooded, it looks like the flowers are growing out of the water. So I painted in some greens along the horizon with some yellow spots for the wildflowers. 

For the foreground, I calmed down the water a little bit and put some cat tails in the foreground. I also used some white gouache on the feathers.

OOPS!!! There were some unexpected issues in class. A lot of the boards developed a spotty mottling as soon as the watercolor paint touched the paper. It looked like granulated paint over the page. I've been trying to communicate with the maker to see if it is a mold problem or something else. 

Besides the mottling, the paper tears with a lot of Miskit. Maybe the paper is not as heavyweight as it should be. And you just cannot lift. I put a little lifting Prep on the bird's body, which made it easier to paint. These issues caused a lot of frustration. We had to use gouache to help cover up some of the mottling.

Here is an example of the discoloring of the paper.

Some things I learned:

1. If I did this again, I would put lifting Prep or gum Arabic over the entire board before painting, then dry it. This would make the paint flow and blend better and lift. I could also have used a blending Medium, which would have slowed down the drying time so that the paint could blend better.

2. I think this board would be good for pen and ink. The surface is much smoother than most cold press I've seen. 

3. I think I would not use masking fluid on the feathers, but paint them in with gouache at the end. I would mask out the neck and face if doing a wash over the background. Just not every tiny feather. For one thing, it is hard to soften the edges. For another, I don't like how the masking seems to pool at one end of a line.