I finally managed to find time - and good enough light - to complete a third painting in my 'Bird on a Perch' series. This autumnal painting of a Eurasian Jay is based on a photograph from BBC Countryfile magazine (which I have found to be a very useful source of reference material) but with a few alterations for artistic purposes, notably the bushes in the foreground. It's also the first in the series in which I've used pastel sticks for the background and Caran D'Ache pastel pencils for the detail. The Clairefontaine Pastelmat paper works superbly with both mediums and allows much more detail to be applied to the painting without overworking the paper.

The gaps between these seem to be getting longer for various reasons (eight years since the last one), but I plan to buck the trend as I already have number 4 ready to start. After all, if I kept up the trend so far with this series, the next one wouldn't be ready until 2034!

The pastel paintings in this series will feature many different kinds of birds, from small garden varieties such as this jay to much bigger birds. The series will include paintings of birds on tree stumps, washing lines, flowers, branches and many other perches.

Medium: Pastel
Size: 24 x 34 cm
Materials: Clairefontaine Pastelmat paper. Caran D'Ache pastel pencils. SAA pastel sticks
Mountboard Colour: Not yet mounted