Chickadee in the Forsythia

Chickadee in the Forsythia
Oil on panel, 6x8
purchase here

My forsythia are out in full force today!  I love the brilliant yellow blooms - and I have transplanted them all over the place - by the barn, three different places in the main yard, and soon to randomly placed in the pasture for the best impact to future landscape paintings!  I have a bucket full of tiger lilies that also need to be placed in new locations before we get that hard freeze on Friday, too.  Perhaps I'll get that done tomorrow.  This painting was so much fun to work on today!  It also has a secret behind it - a snowy landscape with a winding path - never to be seen again!  Some of those colors are popping through here and there to tell their tale.  Pushing the sky towards the violet creates a perfect backdrop for the yellows to shine.  Starting first with cad yellow light, I brush into the sky so that some of those strokes are softened and lost.  I then pushed in a little cad green in a few spots for balance.  Taking my knife, I cut in Gamblin's radiant yellow for highlights that almost pop right off the panel.  The chickadees have been flying back and forth to the feeders, allowing me plenty of time to capture their image with brush and knife.  I wish I had a little of the radiant white to try on this bird, but alas this is a color I have not yet acquired! Painting number 814 in 814 days :)