Splashing Through Life - Art by Patricia Henderson

I've finally finished the sky! Next, on to the water....

Today I finished my rough underpainting, rough being the operative word. I had to stop myself from putting in too much detail and remember that this is just a guideline and not the finished painting! In the first photo, the underpainting is done and I have applied one piece of paper. (I forgot to take a picture before I glued it on.) In the next photo, I've started working on the background. I like how the heron's smooth feathers contrast with the more busy background, so I will try to keep them that way when I collage the papers on to him.

Today I started to block in the colours in the underpainting. As you can see it looks really rough, but it will all be covered in paper eventually. The paint acts as a guide for me and also to test colours and values.

I discovered a great art contest the other day called  Eco Arts Awards . I thought it would be a great contest to enter. Artists will submit artwork with their interpretation  of the meaning of Ecology.  The first thing that sprang to mind was Wetlands. I love Great Blue Herons, so I thought I'd make one the main focus, and also in keeping with the ecology theme, I'll be using my paper collage process, using primarily papers recycled from old books and magazines if I can. I found my heron reference from  Paint My Photo  a great website where photographers can post their photos for artists to use as copyright free reference material. Thanks Tracee Murphy for the great photo! After doing a couple of thumbnail sketches, I drew my scene onto a 24 X 12" canvas. Since this piece will be fairly complicated I will loosely paint it first with acrylics to give me a guideline while applying the papers. Here is my drawing so far. I will be fixing that poor dragon...

r I had decided to try and paint a totally watercolour piece the other weekend. Well....it didn't turn out as planned. Wasn't happy with the colours, composition, and more! So last night I defaced it! LOL I got out some coloured pencils and went to town. I actually kind of like it now, but I think I'll start a new one. Who knows what I'll do to that!