Work In Progress: Osprey: Lover’s Key, Florida Update 5

            Last week I discussed how, from the thumbnail sketches, I arrived at a composition of an Osprey in flight, returning to his nest, where hungry mouths were waiting.

I tried out some value sketches and picked one that I thought would make a good painting. But, rather than launch right into the painting, I decided to work up a full size graphite drawing. In this way I could see how the background clouds would look full size. I could work out the pattern in detail to see if the vague image in my mind’s eye would look good in real.

            In addition, I wanted to work out the detailed structure of the nest so I didn’t have to try to work it out on the final paper. The values also were very important, so I wanted to be sure the values and their relationships were what I wanted.

            The final reason for working up a full size pencil drawing was to decide on the final size. I jumped back and forth on that a bit but after consulting with my wife and daughter, who were following the progress closely, I decided to enlarge it a bit from the 20” by 16” to 22” X 17”. Both my wife and daughter felt it would be better to include all of the tail of the mama bird in the nest, rather than cut it off. I had to agree. Any opinions out there?

            So, here is the final pencil drawing.

            I’ll have to work out the colors scheme for the background, the birds and the nest. That will be presented in the next update. From that final preparation step I’ll begin to work up the painting. At this point I’m still confident that I’ll do a watercolor background with colored pencil for the birds, nest and foliage. I’m considering working this pencil drawing into a finished form that could be made into prints.