Cardinal

I spotted this pretty lady

just outside my window on one of those snow days a couple weeks back.  Since I've been painting animals, I really felt like I had to paint this bird, so my mom helped me take a couple pictures.  I love the colors of the cardinal against the snow.  Cardinals are such funny fat little birds, especially in the winter.
First I painted a 10x10" square canvas orange.  Then I started layering the background colors on, but since gray is boring, I made it purple instead.  Brownish is also a boring color, so her chest became vermillion.

This project took me a long time because I was working on several other pieces at the same time.  I'm afraid I went a little dark with the purple on her belly, but overall I'm happy with the painting.

Artist behaviors:
1.  Artists Create Original Art - For this piece, I was inspired by the sight of a cardinal outside my window and took my own picture of the bird. I went beyond the photograph to create a unique piece that shows my style as a painter.
2.  Artists Take Risks - As I was painting, I decided that I didn't want to stick with traditional or realistic colors. Instead, I intensified the colors that I saw to make the piece more interesting (and less boring to paint :)). I was actually kind of nervous, as I was inventing colors that I wasn't sure would look good together or that I would be able to create shape and form with. I had to be careful not to let the colors mix and create a nasty brown color. I think my color-mixing risks paid off. I am happy with how this turned out.
3.  Artists Develop Art Making Skills - I used oils for this project, a medium that I am getting more and more comfortable with, but I think I still learned some things about manipulating oil paints. I got a little more comfortable with using darker colors, something I tend to have trouble with, and I had to figure some things out about composition and simplifying the picture so the focus would be on the cardinal.