Painting of Northern Cardinal (male) in pastel

I love painting birds but I find the feathers are a challenge to render with pastels on sandpaper. I am resisting the temptation to go back and tweak a few tufts of cheek feathers as I am never truly satisfied...



"Dressed in Scarlet"
Northern Red Cardinal
pastel
4" x 6"
 Available for Purchase





Pastel Painting of cardinal update

I started working the feathers of the body and wings on this little bird painting today. Much more layering is going to happen until I am satisfied with the results. Thank goodness this paper can accept up to 25 layers of pastel!

 

Cardinal painting in progress

Here is a better image of the bird painting progress. I am pretty much done working on the head, which has had many layers of pastel to achieve the proper hues of the red feathers.

Winter bird painting on the easel

With winter fast approaching, I am inspired to paint a snow scene. I've always wanted to paint a cardinal and so he is my next subject to be featured on paper. I am using pastels and Wallis sandpaper for this piece and it will measure roughly 3"x5" when done or, perhaps a bit larger.  It is not always easy to create the feather detail on that scale...the image shown is bigger than actual.