Egret at Home

I've always wanted to paint an egret but they are elusive to photograph. Herons seem to be much more common. Anyway, I love the habitat of marsh with grasses and water and the birds look so cool dotted around, the tallest object around.

My first version of this egret is something I think I'm going to gesso over. It looked very forced to me and I wanted to do better. In this piece I really tried to be imaginative with the color and creative with the color tones of the bird. I tried to be sensitive to the lights, darks and midtones and divide the color spaces up creatively. I am very pleased. I used a lot of medium in my acrylic paints to keep the paint workable for a longer period of time so that my brush strokes were able to blend together in places.

Thanks to my brother, Joe, for the reference photo for this piece.

"Egret at Home" • Original Acrylic on 3/4" cradled gessoboard, sides stained cherry brown • ready to hang

If interested in purchasing this piece click HERE.