Ken has been bugging me to paint a picture of his favorite bird to our feeders. She is a mutated female Cardinal (we think). Well, we know it is a Northern Cardinal, but not sure about it’s gender. I’m going to post the reference photo as well as my rendition. I think the photo captures her beauty better, but perhaps the painting does tribute to her uniqueness.

In case you think that is some strange, exotic plant in our yard (in addition to the strange exotic bird), she is sitting in the top of a dead pine tree sapling. Gotta hate those pine borrow beetles.

And, for my artist friends, I want to show the first stage of the painting. Sometimes I honestly love these the best and I may have to go back and try this again and stop at the wonderful loosey-goosey stage.

The first stage was painted with one fairly large flat brush (just wiped and cleaned between strokes).  I guess this is considered the block-in. But there is just something wonderful and juicy about it.