Chickadee painting step 4

As an animal artist who paints mainly fur, I have to admit that I am finding that recreating the birch bark on this scene is a refreshing change. I can't say that it is easy to follow the intricacies of the bark on the reference and then reproduce them on paper...it's probably because I am not used to drawing trees. So forcing myself to do so is a great exercise (which is what I consider this painting to be).