Ice Ice Baby

Back to the drawing board, literally, with this one. I'm still struggling to get a consistent put-down of colour on Bristol Board, so tried this latest piece on old-fashioned cartridge paper. The extra grain  of the paper, for me, though,  means a lot more time trying to fill in the unwanted white bits, which is not what I want, so it's another a case of trying something else. Anyway, I thought this young Herring Gull would prove an interesting challenge as it rested on melting ice. The foreground ice is fairly convincing but the background water less so - it's too grainy. No apologies for the rather 'cute' facial expression of the gull, though! Unusually, it did indeed momentarily look rather amiable, most unlike its older kind!
Cheers

                                  Field sketch of 2nd W Herring Gull, Old Moor, 8th Feb, 2015