A Fast Merganser

Hooded Mergansers may not be any faster than other mergansers. It was how fast I completed the painting.
Without much doubt, Hooded Mergansers are the most attractive of the various merganser species.
So for this painting, I pulled another old photo from a photo album. This photo was taken by my old friend Richard Inman at Bosque Del Apache Wildlife Refuge, near Socorro, New Mexico. He sent me the photo to use as a reference, in case I ever wanted to use it in a painting. I've been meaning to do so for about 12 years.
First I sketched the bird on an 11x14" gessoboard. Then I roughed in some gray/green water.

In this stage I put a line of bulrushes along the top of the painting, and added some reflections of them in the water.

.Next I put in some thin blue reflections of the sky in the water, and a base of the duck's reflection. Then I extented some faint reflections of the top bulrushes.

The painting started to look like something when I roughed in the merganser.

The painting looks finished at this stage. I refined the subject and it's reflection, but I still have more work to do.

A detail of the completed merganser. There is still more work to do on the rest of the painting.

Richard's original photo had the merganser partially concealed behind more bulrushes. I added them. but I simplified the composition of the reeds.

The completed painting, Hooded Merganser, 11x14". I can't remember whether I've painted one before this. I bet I have.

Another detail photo. The whole painting only took a day and a half from start to finish. Time will tell whether I decide to make future changes to it. For now it looks fine.