A Tricolored Heron That Fell in a Painting!

I seem to have an endless supply of these bird images from the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Rookery. It is such an incredible place to get bird images in the Spring. This is just another example of one of the magnificent birds hanging out looking for a mate. This time I actually used a layer mask to separate most of the bird from the tree limbs behind him. Since I was going to paint him, it did not have to be perfect. The bird was painted using Fay Sirkis’s (from KelbyOne) Precious Diamond Blender brush (her Mixer brushes are wonderful), then changing to it to add color when needed. This is my favorite brush for painting birds and has been used on most of my bird paintings. The texture is made up of two textures I created in Corel Painter 2015. Both textures used Quick Fix Color Brushes from Karen Sperling’s Artistry Quick Fix Video (#4 in this case) Series (check them out-and inexpensive way to learn Painter and she provides some of the best Painter brushes!), and the second also used a blender I created, and the other used Karen’s . They were placed underneath the bird and on a New Layer on top, the edges of the bird were blended into the texture. An Exposure Adjustment Layer (see my How To Do a Quick Eye Sharpening in Photoshop blog) was used to sharpen the eye. On a stamped layer on top, PS Camera Raw’s Radial Filter was used to add focus to the face and beak – painted out with the brush parts of body not to be emphasized. A Selective Color Adjustment Layer’s White Color was selected to make the white color behind the bird stand out just a little more – set Black slider to -37. That was it. I was pleased how the texture fits with the bird……Digital Lady Syd