The Bananaquit

This is a 9x12" colored pencil painting on watercolor paper of the Bananaquit, (following info from Wikipedia) : "The Bananaquit is a very small bird attaining an average length of 11 cm. It has a slender, curved bill, adapted to taking nectar from flowers. It sometimes pierces flowers from the side, taking the nectar without pollinating the plant. It cannot hover like a hummingbird, and must always perch while feeding. It will also eat fruit and insects. It often visits gardens and may become very tame."
According to Wikipedia the entire belly should be yellow, but the photo I used as a reference had this coloration.

fabrics for new project

Quite a few folks have been asking me how I make the abstract pieces I have posted lately. Since I want to make a 4 part seasonal series, I decided to share a little look at the process I go through.

The first one I am doing is spring. I sat down and wrote down what comes to mind when I think spring..right off the bat the obvious things came to mind, flowers, new grass and leaves, birds, butterflies,birds led to robin's eggs, flowers led to rain, rain led to mud.

So in the picture below you will find the fabrics I pulled to represent Spring.

In the next post, you will see how I begin, it is different every time, and I am not even sure how I will do this one, although I have cut out ovals for the eggs from a nice blue and some very free form floral shapes, as well as 2 Irises.

I also know that all 4 pieces of this series are going to be 12"..