Painting size: 14*19 inches, 450gsm Hahnemuehle watercolor paper
Something about the long distance perilous journeys that migratory birds take struck a deep chord in me, making me want to paint them in a stormy sky setting. Thinking of swans, I soon realized that one scene wouldn’t do them justice and so I have started on a three painting series on swans.
Swans generally mate for life. They breed in the summer and return to the same nest every year. The nest is built on a mound surrounded by water. They migrate with their young ones for winter to fresh water lakes and ponds near to constant food supply areas like agricultural fields.
The bar headed geese are migratory birds that fly upto 27,000 feet which makes them the highest altitude migrants. Every spring,they fly from their winter feeding grounds in India over the Himalayas to their nesting grounds in Tibet.
This first painting is a peaceful scene of Mute swans on the sacred Manasa sarovar lake near Mt. Kailash, the heavenly abode of Lord Shiva in the Himalayas.
Here is the sketch I made by combining elements from many photos.
Watercolor Journal 