Watercolor--The First Cardinal

One night while I was visiting M came home from work and said, "Let's paint tonight!"  I was thrilled.  I opened YouTube and went to a tutorial.  She wanted a bird to paint so we found one.

This cardinal is my cardinal.

Because I try very hard not to make comparisons,  I will just say that I am happy enough with this guy. 

Our process was to watch the YouTube all the way through.  We liked it and thought it was do-able so we went back to the beginning and started watching again.  Megan stopped it after a few brush strokes and kept it up until we were done.  She took a great deal of care with her painting.  I more or less slapped it together. That is what it looks like, too!

When I got tired of the cardinal I just drew some pine needles without remembering what they looked like on the original.  I sort of don't mind how mine came out....

Perhaps I will do more work on this bird.  Especially the beak.  I love M's beak.

PLUS, I like her green Frog Tape!  I use blue painters' tape, which works great, BUT don't you just love the green tape?!

This is the video we used as our inspiration...

In looking at the original and then looking at our paintings, I see that both of us have birds sitting very dignified and upright.  The cardinal in the YouTube is more relaxed and bent over on the branch.

When I showed our birds to Dear One, he said they were too fat, that they did not look like the slim and sylph-like cardinals at our bird feeder (when our bird feeder was still up.  No bird feeders now because of the bears...).

My thought is to try this again, after I have re-worked the beak on the current painting.  Of course,  I need to get the kitchen cleaned and tidy, the workroom organized, the garden weeded, and so on or I will feel guilty painting...