There is a previous post about how I prepared the canvas to use watercolor. This one is just focused on the painting process itself.
The original reference photo was from Pixabay.
Draw/trace your picture onto the prepared canvas. If you make mistakes or get smudges from the graphite paper, use a magic eraser, dampened, to erase. A normal eraser will just smudge.
Keep these tips in mind as you paint:
1. Put down the paint in the value and color you want the first time.
2. Using tube paints will make it easier and faster to achieve the paint consistency you need.
3. Don't use your good sable brushes. Canvas is hard on them.
4. Remember, everything can be ..and will be...lifted back to white.
This is a subject that can have any sort of background (except desert). Anywhere you find water, you can find blue herons. You can make a background of sea shore, lake shore, marsh, swamp, wetlands. Some have even been found in meadows and farmland. There are many near where I live, which is near an oxbow and the Ohio river. They like to nest in high places, like trees or island hills, away from predators.
So I left the background for you to choose.
Regardless of what you choose, the background is painted first. Paint right up to or even over the outside of the bird--you will get your whites back at the end.
For the marshy background above, I held the canvas at an angle, vertically, to apply paints and let them run together--mostly a variety of greens and some burnt sienna, concentrating darks at the edge of the lake. I painted up to and even into the outer feathers of the bird.
When that dried, I turned the board horizontally and painted wet into wet, letting the paint run along the horizon to create the look of a pond or lake edge.
Here is one I began using a pale, seashore background. The background is all done painted horizontally, allowing the paints to run left to right.
Painting the Heron
After the background is dry, using a small damp brush, I carefully remove paint that may have got on to beak, neck, etc. to bring it back to white.
To paint the Heron, I made a mixture of gray using French ultramarine and burnt sienna. There are many professional artists who use various strengths of this mix for grays. Add more blue if you want it grayer; more burnt sienna if you want it browner.
I treated the body of the bird, wings included, as if it were a giant football to be shaded with a medium gray. I used a bluer gray on the right side of the neck to create a shadow on the neck, like a cylinder.
When this dried, I painted a dark on the shoulder patch, the belly under the wing feathers, and part of the tail, and on the head. I used a dark made from French ultramarine and burnt sienna, but I added some pthalo blue to brighten up the color.
When dry, I used a fine brush dipped in water to remove paint to create feathers. It does not have to be a "scrub" brush, just firm enough to remove paint lightly. Very similar to the step of removing paint on the elephant on yupo.
Legs and head
The main color I used for the legs is quin burnt orange, with yellow for hilights. You can use a warm yellow mixed with burnt sienna or red. The beak is a warm yellow with some burnt sienna in it. Use a dark mix for the black on his head and the feather extending from it. Make sure the canvas is dry when you apply these finer shapes or the paint will not be hard edges.
The eye is yellow, and after it dried, I used a fine pen to outline it, as it is too small for me to paint with accuracy.
The leg is reflected in the pool of water. For that reflection, I painted it lighter with no hard lines. Then I ran a damp small brush through it (like water ripples) to break up the reflection a bit.
Details in the water
I wanted it to look like water lilies in the pond. So I made some lilies using a thicker consistency of dark green, and painted right over the water with lily pads. For the pink flowers, I removed paint in the shapes of the flowers. When that was dry and back to white, I painted in the flower shapes in pink.
**Sketcher's note on drawing lily pads: They seem big and round, but remember they are being viewed from an angle. If you want them to appear as if they are floating on the water, you will have to make them flat. They will only appear round if they are directly below you. Sorry, perspective is everywhere.
Prove it to yourself: Make a dark dot in the center of a round lid. Take pictures of it at different distances and different angles. Notice just how flat the curves are as they touch the surface of your floor or counter. Also notice how that dark center dot is farther from the bottom of the circle than the top. At eye level,
you can't even see the dot.
Bonus: all your friends will think you are weird for taking so many pictures of a round lid.
Finishing and framing
When you do watercolor on canvas, finishing is pretty easy. Use the Kamar Varnish spray, which we used on yupo projects. Spray a very light spray. Wait 15 min. Spray another very light spray. This "sets" the paint. (a heavier spray can move the paint, just as water would). Then you can give it a coat or two. After it dries, test it to see if the paint moves with water. If not, you're good.
You do not need to mat this, and you can frame it without glass, as long as you have varnished it well.
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