The inspiration for this painting came from encountering the pair of resident, quite tame crowned cranes who live on the grounds of the Kenya Bird of Prey Trust. I couldn’t get a perfect photo however so I used a fabulous photo taken by Shawn Olesen as my primary reference.

I started this project on my laptop, by compositing the crane against a “golden ratio” flat panel of blue, with a separated lower strip to represent a horizon line, then sketched in a detailed outline using my pressure sensitive Intuos graphics tablet. Once I had outlines that I liked I printed them out and taped them down to my large format lightbox. I use the lightbox rather than graphite transfer paper or pencil drawings to leave the watercolor paper free of any outlines.

I then taped over a 30” x 22” piece of Canson XL cold press paper, which, once I started trying to lay in soft color bleeds, proved disastrous, as it stained as if I were painting on blotter paper with felt tip pens! I started over with Arches Rough 100% cotton watercolor paper (which I had to buy while visiting my daughter in Atlanta, as there is no Arches in Kenya!).

I used Van Gogh and Winsor & Newton paints, applying broad background washes first, which I eventually over-painted with acrylics to get a solid flatter and deeper background panel. I then laid in the base body and head textures using a combination of wet on wet, dry brush and wet on dry washes. I used small amounts of sea salt to form the texture patterns of the cap and wattles, and deliberate “bloom” backwash effects in the background. Then I went back with a series of glazes to build up contrast and shadows, finally using a zero size synthetic sable brush to render the details of the horns, hair, eyes and muzzle, leaving the body very loose.

You can see the stage-by-stage progress in my CREATIVE PROCESS section.

I am donating 50% of the proceeds from an upcoming fundraising auction towards the Kenya Bird of Prey Trust, who run raptor programs on a minimal budget in Naivasha. Many thanks to Shiv Kapila and Simon Thompsett for their hospitality and support.

To see a high-resolution image and learn more about Grey-crowned Cranes, check out my GALLERY section