Pelican Painting

Yesterday I spent most of the day working on my pelican painting.  Here is reference photo I am working from.....

A fellow rv blogger had this photo on his blog and was kind enough to allow me to use it.  You can read all about Keith's travels here.
Below you will see my progress on the painting....

Just getting some color and value laid in....but I'm already liking the way this is coming together!  This is acrylic on a 24 by 12 inch gessoboard.  I started this by laying in the blue sky.  Once that was dry I sketched in the palm tree leaves and then undercoated them with white.  I undercoat in white because I work in transparent layers and I didn't want the blue background to skew my transparent washes on the leaves.