I wet the neck and head and added cobalt blue mixed with rose madder genuine for the shadow. Then used the same color to define the feathers on the front wing..dropped into wet paper..tricky but make the color a bit dryer than the wetness of the paper and it will work. Continued to lift more grass shapes from time to time.



Went to the lower left corner and lifted flat ovals to suggest water..then lifted drops which might have shaken off as the bird takes flight.




Painted the legs a black mixed from French Ultramarine blue and burnt sienna..this color will lift completely, so is great for very dark areas that might need lifting.




Painted the eye yellow and the bill a combination of indian yellow and cad orange with a highlight lifted on top and a shadow underneath with a bit of cobalt/rose madder mixed.




Looked very carefully at my photo with a magnifying glass and painted a dot in the eye and the med darks around it with a tiny brush and a mixture of cobalt blue and burnt sienna.




This is a scan of the finished painting. I have added a bit of yellow and burnt sienna to a few of the grasses and you can see the detailing of the feathers. I had made the farthest feathers fuzzy to suggest movement and lifted a highlight on the black legs. The colors are truer than in the photos preceding and the painting has turned out more striking that I had imagined it. In painting watercolor, there are always nice surprises and you must be ready to wait for them to happen and incorporate them into your original idea...with grace and ease.