White Pelicans, watercolor, 15X15
This was the painting we did the second day using the color mingling techniques we learned on the first day. The subject was more complicated, especially the water which was quite a challenge. I ended up cropping the right side of the painting which was just more water since I had eliminated the far right pelican on the original. It was a wonderful subject to paint and I really appreciate the great reference photos that Ann Abgott allowed us to use for our paintings. I thought it would be fun to paint some swans that I had photographed and when I looked at my pictures, I didn't have the wonderful shadows on them like these pelicans had. So much of reference photography is being at the right place at the right time. I also set up some still life scenes to photograph and found out how tricky that is as well. Light source and shadows make all the difference.
