Once all the trees and rocks were done I finished the surface of the lake. Using the mountain wash color.I did the same thing with the mountain shadow color, adding a touch of Cobalt Blue and airbrushing the background for the star portion of the flag. Adding a small amount of Cobalt Blue to the sky mixture I airbrushed the low points between the waves on the rest of the lake. In the same bottle I mixed in a few drops of Medium Gray, Cobalt Blue and Sepia to spray the shadowed stone reflections on the left.With the same beige/snow mixture from the fog on the left wing, I airbrushed fog at the back of the lake and where the beam of light hit the water surface. With the same color, I then sprayed a small spot at the top edge of the sky where the light will break through the clouds. Using very little paint, I airbrushed a faint beam of light from the light spot, being careful to keep my strokes very light and straight, widening out evenly to the base at the surface of the lake. With a smooth, straight move- ment, I added 4 additional beams of light, each beam a single, light stroke. I added a little Brite White to the snow
color and airbrushed the “white” middle stripe of the light beam, laying it on a little heavier and more opaque near the bottom. Next, I mixed up a bottle each of 4242 Trans- parent Marine Blue and 4234 Transparent Fire Red with enough Reducer to shoot smoothly. I sprayed a very thin layer of red on the left third of the light beam, and blue on the right third, being careful not to lay the color on too heavily. (Both colors fade out about halfway up the beam.) Then I put a little bit of the lightened snow color in a separate bottle and added a few drops of Chrome Yellow. I used this to dust a halo of yellowish glow around the light spot in the sky. I carried it a short distance down each light beam, and added a hint of it to the top edges of the closest clouds. I then went back in with the bottle of whitened snow color and highlighted the center of the light spot. I started very close to make a bright intense spot and as I pulled away, I reduced the paint flow to fade out the edges. (This creates a radiant glow effect.) Lastly, I heat set the whole scene with the hairdryer.
With the leftover colors from the wing feathers, I touched up any areas that needed to be redefined from the scen- ery. To ensure that both upper wings remained the same width, I used a piece of clear plastic wrap to trace the ba-
sic outline of the left wing “arm” with a Sharpie. After the marker dried, I flipped the plastic and lined it up on the right “arm”. I then touched up the feathers wherever they needed to be filled back in and heat set my changes.
I finished up the eagle’s head using a combination of paint- brush and airbrush.Where I needed the feathers to be brightest, I highlighted with Brite White. The tail feathers were painted with the same colors as the head, using the same steps/techniques as the wing feathers. I did the large tail feathers first shaded them heavily where they tucked under the body of the eagle. I used various mix- tures of Flame and Chrome Yellow with Dark Brown and Brite White. I reserved the most intense yellow for the iris of the eye, with duller colors in the beak. To control overspray where the beak meets the scenery on the left wing I placed a small piece of tracing paper over the beak and traced out its outline; I then cut out the beak shape to make a little stencil.
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