A Gentle Heron

“A Gentle Heron” is a simple piece, with light tones and lots of little botanical patterns. I’ve been using watercolours so much lately, but this one had the colours added with markers. I’ve drawn so many herons as of late, but this one really began over a year ago. I sometimes think about producing a colouring book, so the first draft of this piece has less intricate design and doesn’t have colour.

As I explore the idea of creating a colouring book, I’m thinking of creating more pieces like this heron—clean, simple outlines that can stand on their own but also offer room for personal interpretation through colour.

I decided I wanted to see what it looked like will more fill and colour, and so after taking many scans of the piece, I began to work on colouring it. I used a mix of Staedtler Fineliners and ZIG Brushables. I’d never tried these ZIG brushes before but I did really enjoy them. If you’re local to Charlottetown, I purchased these from a great local shop - Bookmark. I love popping in there to see what they have for interesting art supplies (pens in particular).

I’ve really leaned into watercolours in the past year or so - Watercolours can feel very organic, but markers gave me more control over the intensity of colour and allowed for sharper contrasts.

I added a lot more small details that weren’t there in the black and white version. Some of the techniques I used were stippling, cross hatching and line weight variation. The initial drawing had thicker and darker lines, and in this final version I added lots of lighter weight lines using Faber-Castell pens.

I’m looking forward to continuing to explore this style, and who knows, maybe a colouring book will be the next project on the horizon!