Great Northern Diver Painting

The great northern diver is a bird I've seen just the once whilst on holiday in Iceland. They do visit the UK but only really in the northern parts of the country in the winter when they aren't in their handsome looking breeding plumage.
 

A pair of courting divers

It's a bird I've been wanting to paint since I've started oil painting but have put off until now as it's patterns and colouration are complex mix of spots, checkering, stripes, and with a 'metallic sheen' on the neck and head of the bird. So I wanted to make sure I'd be able to do it well enough for my liking.

First I sketched out the position of the bird in sepia and then did a couple of layers of background colour using a fan brush for softness and opacity.

Then I worked further on the background bringing in the colours of the ripples up to the bird. This was followed by washing in the base colours of the bird and building up the opacity of that. The great northern diver naturally has dark red eyes and at this early stage with the lighter washes it was looking pretty demonic!

After that I started to build up the opacity and shades into the bird. 

Then I began detailing the bill and the eyes (so it looked less possessed). The neck and head was given a greyscale toning to it so I could glaze in colour which I thought may help give a metallic look to it

I moved onto working on the markings of the feathers and started adding the dark and bluer ripples in the foreground water and the water droplets on the bird's head.

The glazing of colour into the neck and head then took place and I worked on the more abstract looking ripples of the bird's reflection. The foreground water was also gradually build up with various shades.

The colour glazing continued on the neck and head and the final lighter tones added into the ripples to complete the painting.