Heron Taking Off

I was cleaning out the attic when I came across a model glider that my son and I had built years ago.
This baby has a 6 feet wingspan and is covered with blue and white mylar at the wings and white on the fuselage.  Somehow it reminded me of a heron.

I wanted to paint a heron taking off, with its dropped nose and neck.  Now I'm thinking about the supersonic Concorde.  These images are good; hopefully they can help lend some emotional content to the painting.

 front of Xuan                     

Heron taking flight would assume a lower view angle, thus framed by grassy weeds.
I first wrote the lines for the stalks, then I turned the Xuan over and retraced some of these lines with alum solution.  As we recall, alum works as a resist.  The reason to do this on the back side is because it is more effective this way.

tracing with alum on the back

Now I painted in the heron itself.  The grassy weeds now have a narrow white margin provided by the alum, thus making a better separation from the heron; creating a perception of distance.

Painted in the shore line and trees to add a perception of distance.  I tried to highlight the heron by darkening the surrounding with a wash.   The best concoction for this wash is the brush bath.  This bath water is the sum of all the colors used for this painting, and is guaranteed to provide the right tone.

   darkening the surrounding

 

       brush bath used as wash

 

This is what the painting looks when dried.

This is an exploratory piece.  I would like to apply what I've learned from this to a few more?