Hallo,
I finished this painting about a week and a half ago but it has been crazy busy lately for me....
I have a bunch of pics and the last 2 at the bottom are the finished piece - a close up of the heron and then the whole painting.
The background - sky and lake and beginnings of the tree line and marsh are all done in the usual way with encaustic wax - melted layers painted with brushes and fused with a torch. Some textures added with brushes and fused and then I started with my hot pen stylus. I added details to the tree line and the marsh grasses with the fine tip hot pen.
I almost stopped there because I really liked it(third picture), but the more I looked at it the more it told me it needed just a little bit more.
I printed out a picture of the heron from a book I have on clip art, onto rice paper and embedded it into the painting with clear encaustic(noncolored). I then used the hot pen stylus to paint in the heron.
The 5th picture shows the hot pen tip I used. The heron alone took me about 5 hours to do but I am super happy with how he turned out!!!! The marsh grasses took me almost 2 hours.
I should have this one listed on my Etsy and Redbubble sites by the end of the week....