Tag: Watercolor Eagle

We have been super busy this week, but I was finally able to finish a painting. I am so grateful for the time, even with our very hectic week we’ve had. I have been painting an Eagle. The inspiration for this painting came from a picture one of my sons took. Every spring as our little swampy pond area starts to thaw, we have eagles come and eat stuff out of the thawing ice. I’m not sure if it’s small fish from the stream, or just small animals that didn’t survive through the winter, but they come and spend several days eating. This offers us a great opportunity to watch these magnificent birds, but also affords us many opportunities for pictures. This picture has been sitting on my computer as something that inspired me for months now, and I finally got around to painting it. He actually took several cool pictures, so this might not be the only one, but this one was my favorite one.

I always want to get pictures of the eagles flying, but I usually end up getting them flying away. I don’t really have any desire or inspiration to painting the back side of an eagle. But with a lot of patience on the part of my son, and a little instruction from me as to what I was looking for, the above picture was the picture he took. He did a great job! I loved it as soon as I saw it, but I didn’t like the background. That is the beauty of being an artist however, I can change that. So, last week I set out enlarging and making a simple sketch of what I wanted, painting the sketch to get the colors right, and then drawing the finished sketch on my watercolor paper. This week I spent painting.

I loved the subject right from the beginning, and I really like the background change. Eagles are one of the most impressive birds, and I love seeing them all the time here in Alaska. They are one of my favorite birds. I have had the opportunity to have one fly over my car as I was driving down my driveway, and they are impressively large birds as well. I had a lot of fun painting this picture, and I am glad that I finally had time to paint the beautiful picture that my son was able to capture so long ago!