Grey Crowned Crane

I usually start paintings by lightly sketching out the subject in order to have a basic map of the pose and proportions.

Using a large flat brush: the background is filled in with bright colours ranging from green to orange. The brush strokes being large and rounded makes them appear blurry which in turn will later help to make the foreground subject look infocus.

The form of the subject starts to be filled by using middle tones, this is so that later the darkest and lightest tones can be used more effectivly as well as to mimic how because the feathers are layered together the ones underneath appear darker.

Some of the lighter tones are now added using a smaller brush, since these tones will on the upper layers of paint a smalle brush can be used as they wont be easily lost and will make sharper brush strokes to make the sharper look more infocus.

Final neck fluff highlights are added by using an even small paint brush and just white paint which are used to outline the edges of the subjects' form which will help make it easier for the veiwer to read the subjects' outline.

The white feathers of the side of the cranes' face are very shiny and reflective, so to convay this the edges of that area are light instead of shadowed.

The eyes are one the one of the first things a person will look at when trying to read a subject and because the way the human brain works it will easily recognise if something is wrong which can make the subject look less alive or unerving. This means I often will re-paint the eyes of a subject to make sure it looks alive and part of the subject.

Due to how the crown is a very similar colour to the background the colours of it will be exaggerated slightly to make it more noticable against the background so that the veiwer can see it.