Cardinal in Winter

Cardinal in Winter was a fun painting to do. I started with a couple photographs I've take of a female Cardinal in my yard. I combined her with a photograph I had taken of a holly bush one winter and figured out a cropping I thought would be a nice design. Now the poor females a never brightly colored since they need to be well camouflaged when taking care of their eggs and chicks, so I knew I needed to convert her to a male. I had photographs of the males as well and used those for the color reference.