Watching for Dave

Excuse the sappy title, but they all have such an expectant, intent gaze that it's the first thing I thought of. I had gone to this small lake looking for scenes that reminded me of Dave's Cooterville images and although I didn't find what I was looking for I found the water levels were low and there were multitudes of birds fishing.
I used Dap Cezanne False Colors palette for one layer and masked in the birds and bg slightly. Then Cezanne default palete for the second layer. I layered Cezanne over Realism, used Nik Bicolor and a final round of usm.
Thanks for looking. Comments and suggestions appreciated:S3:

Wonderful moody evocative image, Cheryl, and you nailed the title, sappy or not. What a neat trick to find a group of herons and egrets facing one direction - they were cooperative. Great processing here and the reflections in the water enhance the whole effect. I love it.

Cheryl, Outstanding image that reflects Dave's work perfectly!! I love the water, painterly effect and the colors.:S3:

Very lovely work, Cheryl. It shows Dave's inspiration in more ways than one. :S3: I love the mood and title.

This is excellent, Cheryl. I am certain Dave would have liked it very much. Love the beautiful setting and the herons and egrets. Excellent processing. TFS.

Hi Cheryl. I love the look to this one and having all the birds looking in the same direction too makes it work very nicely. Excellent work!

Beautiful work Cheryl and a fine tribute to Dave!

This is wonderful, Cheryl! Dave may be gone but he certainly isn't forgotten. It's hard to believe just how much inspiration I'm getting from this theme! :S3:

What had all their attention?

Thanks everyone for your comments:S3: Dave really was an inspiration to me and his death had a profound affect on me even though I never met him. Ken, I think they were all looking for fish. The lake is really shallow right now and they were catching really big mudfish. The gbh on the left caught one right after I took this image.

A beautiful tribute Cheryl. I love the color effect achieved with bi-color as well as the painting effect. Title fits perfectly. :S3:

Richard

Cheryl, this is fantastic! It is one of the best painting style images I've seen. My eye is drawn to the upper third of the image by the soft blur of the watercolor style, but remains rooted to the group of birds and their common pose. The bird on the left almost blends into the background and this brings my eye over to the left and makes me think about what they are looking at.

I think your title is just fine, no need to apologize. :c3: