Wattled Jacanas are attractive birds with elongated toes that allow them to stride along water lily pads on the edges of the shallow lakes and ponds where they live in South America. The males incubate a pair of eggs on a floating nest. How neat is that?
This painting is bit unusual in that I had the sketch sitting around for years before getting around to making it into a painting. The original sketch was done from slides that I took at the Cleveland Metropark Zoo. While the pose of the bird was decent, the bird itself was just standing on a cement floor. That isn’t the most natural looking habitat for any bird other than a Ring-billed Gull looking for a French fry.
While I had a nice sketch of a bird, I didn’t have much to go on other than imagining the bird walking along lily pads. After a bit of research I thought it would be fun to paint the bird standing in pond full of Victoria Water Lily. Probably the most dramatic specimens frequently found around Wattled Jacanas, these water lilies are massive and have prickly blood red veins growing on their sides, contrasting beautifully with their green leaves. This genus of water lilies has some of the most spectacular specimens in the world, including the Victoria amazonica, which can grow to almost 10 feet in diameter!
I photographed these plants at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania years ago, but none of the shots really matched my Jacana sketch. Lacking the perfect photo reference for these dramatic plants, I sculpted a 3D scene with the water lilies on the computer to go along with the sketch, as you can see in the step-by-step. I think it created a convincing scene worthy of such an interesting bird.
I must admit that I got a bit carried away with the details on this one.
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