Yellow Crowned Night Heron Painting

Yellow Crowned Night Heron painting is done in acrylics on a 14 x 14 inch gallery wrapped canvas.  This is one of those I finished (2009) but wasn't quite satisfied with it.  I have a spot high up in the studio where I hang paintings to be revisited.  Usually I get back to unfinished works within a few months.  Here it is five years later and I got out the ladder and put a little more paint on him.  I worked on the body feathers to build more contrast.  His head is the only place on the little guy that has color.  There is not much detail in the crayfish he was eating as he had already crunched it.  He was standing in carpet grass while fishing so I put some water behind him to make the painting a little more interesting.  Yellow Crowned Night Herons are plentiful here in the Texas coastal area.  They fish in swampy areas, ditches, ponds, and salt water marshes.  They make nests of sticks in trees and bushes.

I hope you enjoy the painting and the story.

God Bless You,
jimmie@jimmiesart.com

www.thebartlettpair

Blue Heron Taking Flight, Original Painting 11x14

This great blue heron is about to take flight in the Matagorda, Texas wet lands next to the Colorado River.  He was well over 100 yards away when I took a chance photoshot and got lucky enough to hit the target.  His image came out fuzzy and very small on the photo.  I enlarged the image and increased the contrast enough to paint from.  This painting was a real drill in painting the light and shadows to create the shapes and make him look realistic and a lot different than a fuzzy spec on a photograph.  There are pros and cons among artists about using photographs to paint from, but I could never have painted this fantastic scene without a camera and also a whole lot of luck.  Taking Flight is on a11x14 stretched canvas.

Let us pray before we paint,

Jimmie

Brazos River Bait Camp, Original Oil Painting (Alla Prima)

This is an oil painting I did today of the Brazos River Bait Camp.  It is painted on a 6x8 gesso'd masonite board.  The camp is located in a bayou off the Brazos River in Coastal Texas.  There are many birds in the coastal wet lands of Texas.  Herons and egrets are plentiful and we often see other species such as the roseate spoonbill.  Farther down the coast in the Aransas Pass Refuge you might get lucky and see a whooping crane.  Also there is a new nature center near Bay City, Texas that has a lot of wildlife and birds which is frequented by bird watchers, photographers, and painters.  I hope you like this little painting of a piece of Texas.

Jimmie Bartlett