Three lucky adoptees

 

This weekend I'm invited to a surprise birthday party in Raleigh, NC for my cousin's 65th birthday. Her husband said "no gifts" as her gift was her most recent rescue animal. I felt I should give her a small something though. Recently I was inspired by my friend Carol Clemens who posted photos on FB of two incredible pastel portraits she had done of two other mutual friends. They were both amazing likenesses and captured the other two perfectly. And THEN I found out that they were each only 4x4 inches in size! Wow, how on earth to capture such detail and perfection is such a teeny size?

Anyway, It was an interesting challenge, but I'm not good at portraits.I feel a little more comfortable tackling animals, so decided to try small portraits of my cousin's three rescue animals. Each one of these is only 3x5 inches, to fit into the small triple frame I bought - small enough that she can easily hide it if she doesn't like it! LOL. It was a fun challenge. And working that small IS hard to try to get any sort of detail. My fumble fingers kept getting in the way.

High Island Spoonbill

This is a painting I did from a reference I took in May 2012 when I went to High Island, Texas, at the tail end of the spring migration season. I went on a the last two scheduled walks for the season, and then drove down the coast along the Gulf to Bolivar Flats, and then took the ferry over to Galveston where I was meeting some friends for a cruise. I got 54 species for my Texas list, and added several new birds to my life list.

I love spoonbills, both attractively pink, and yet also ugly and ungainly. And I loved this one sitting in an old dead tree. I had been thinking about doing this for our upcoming spring member show for the First Coast Pastel Society. But then last week I had a crazy fall and cracked or bruised my ribs and was in far too much pain to think about painting.

But now, after 8 days, the pain is easing somewhat and I was able to sit down. Now that I've done it I'm not sure what I think of it - but I've reached a logical stopping point and have to let it sit for a day or two while I think about it. Done on 11x14 sheet of Richeson paper, sort of a creamy yellowing color.