The last few weekends, I’ve been taking trips to the Oso Bay Wetlands Preserve, here in South Texas. If you are a bird lover like me, it’s a great place to observe many different types of birds in their native environments.
I want to share with you my process of painting when I paint from photo reference, as in this instance.
One of my reference photos from the Oso Bay Wetlands Preserve. 
Another photo reference from my visit to the Oso Bay Wetlands Preserve. 
My photo references for my Snowy Egret painting. 
The Oso Bay Wetlands Preserve. This photo was used to create a background for a larger work. 
More reference material for painting!
From these reference photos, I made some quarter sheet paintings. The first set I want to show you is how I used a quarter sheet reference painting to make a larger half sheet work. Very often I will splice photos together to get compositional ideas.
Here is an isolated reference photo that I found appealing for a study. 
This is another reference photo that I found interesting and paintable. 
This is my reference painting of the Adolescent Egrets. 
My second reference painting of the Snowy Egrets
Using this technique I was able to put together a larger half sheet of this subject.
This is one way to compose a work. It’s almost like sketching, but not quite.
In these next series of photos , I will outline my approach to a painting using a sketch. First, I look through my reference photos and isolate some nice shots of what I think will work in a compositional sketch. I then place them using my reference material. I immediately recognized that the flight of these Egrets was something I would like to capture.
There was one photo that captured the flight beautifully and that became my focal point for this painting.
Another isolated view of my photo reference. I see this immediately as a focal point for a painting. The wing span, the way this bird flys into the frame. It’s captivating to see. 
Here , I isolate the best elements of my photo references. 
One photo reference of a lonely Snowy Egret. One of my reference photos from the Oso Bay Preserve. 
Another, slight blurry, photo reference. I liked the movement in this one.
So, from these photos and the birds that were isolated in them, I made my compositional sketch for my larger work. In this next set of photos, you will see my process from start to finish:
Again, I could improve here by not going too dark too soon on this wash. It started getting a little muddy when I began adding my darks too early. Since I wanted the right section of my painting to really contrast the dark against the light , I wasn’t that concerned with coming in with my dark this early.
I am pretty happy with the way things turned out. I would like to improve my washes which I think will tie in my paintings a little better. To me, they still look a little ‘pasted on’ so the transitions of tone could be better.
I hope you enjoyed this series of my work and happy painting!
This is wonderful, a great way to see your process! I have a few questions…is your sketch in pencil. if so can you share the type? I need to expand my pencil use, I have been playing with both ink and water soluable graphite, but this looks like regular pencil? Also you say you are using van dyke brown and burnt sienna as your yellows…I do see an actual yellow in your pallet? Is this what you are using in the earlier wash on the bird wings?
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Use a #2 pencil, yes, my first wash consists of yellow gambouge, cobalt blue and alizarin crimson (red). Thanks for commenting!
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Thanks Al! You are so generous with your knowledge to us newbies, we appreciate it:))
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It’s a challenge and learning curve for all of us!
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Beautiful sketches, and I love the brushwork!
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Thank you!
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Beautiful work!
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Thanks, it’s a fun project and great practice!
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