Woodcock #Watercolor #WatercolorBirds #ArtJournal

While waiting for a new prompt for '52 Weeks of Watercolor Birds' I decided to choose birds of my own, so that I didn't lose my momentum.

I knew this woodcock was going to be a challenge.  I combined two different photos (both from the Morguefile archive).  And there are so many bars on the feathers and so many layers of feathers!

But hey! What's fun is it  always choosing something you feel comfortable with?  I'm not entirely happy with my finished bird, but I did better than I thought I would.  Hopefully after 52 weeks of bird painting, I'll be able to retry this with more success.  That's the whole point of doing the 52 weeks.

Besides the challenge, I also chose this bird because I was able to use the same colors that I mixed for the squirrel I painted earlier this week.  The palette is one based off of the palette that'Domenic DiStefano used in Painting Dynamic Watercolors'.  The paints I used for my mixes  were M. Graham: Anthraquinone Blue; Daniel Smith: Hansa Yellow Light; Qor: French Cerulean Blue, Naples Yellow, Sap Green, Burnt Sienna, Permanent Alizarin Crimson.

I went back to my go to brushes, Silver Black Velvets (I'll do a review on these one of these days).  I used a Script Liner Size 1, and Rounds size 6 and size 16.

This bird was done in the Global Art Materials Field Watercolor Artist Journal Hand Book, 7 by 10-Inch that I'm using for the '52 Weeks of Watercolour Birds'.