"Going deep...."

The heron is nearly done. As I stepped back and took a look, it became apparent that the large leaves hanging down over the heron's head did not stand out enough. There is a lot of depth in this picture, but some of it was getting lost with everything behind the heron having about the same value. To make the leaves pop out and add depth I decided to darken up the undergrowth in the background. There are still significant highlights remaining where the sun is filtering through but now the leaves can be distinguished from everything behind.

In the upper left corner there are several interesting rocks. They are interesting, not so much for their shape and texture but rather due to the shadows that play on them. Throughout this picture one of the challenges has been to capture the sunlight amidst the deep shadows. The stones are one place that really allow the sunlight to be seen.

A third place that really shows the depth of the picture is in the lower right corner where there are several plants strongly highlighted by the sun. The combination of large size, a lot of detail and contrast with the dark, shadowy leaves behind really bring them to the front of the picture.

In keeping with my post from yesterday concerning journal drawing, I decided to do another quick sketch today. On my bookshelf is a compass I bought several years ago at LL Bean in Freeport ME. I really like the compass but, you know, I have never actually used it for navigation. I generally know where I am, or which direction I need to go when I am hiking and have never really had an occasion to use it. Anyway, I like how it looks and it caught my eye today as an item to sketch. This drawing was done with a Micron pen and colored pencil. In the future I will periodically post my daily sketches here along with my major projects.