A heron, a stork, and a cardinal

These little birds are taking a lot more time than expected. It is very different from the cloud paintings from last year. A cloud can be any shape, but a bird needs to be fairly accurate. So that means adding details with small brushes. I feel like I'm doing a lot of nit-picking. It probably is also because I'm working from pictures where you tend to try to add every little detail. With most of these painting I've started on one day, and finished the next day. 

This heron is from a picture I made while in Florida, but it really could be anywhere. It could be the one fishing in my parent's pond. Even a net over the pond was not much of a deterrent to keep him from taking the fish!

I made the picture of the stork while visiting a flower park in the Netherlands. Storks were almost extinct in the Netherlands, but thanks to preservation efforts they have now made a comeback. They nest on chimneys and structures people put up, and fly back to Africa for the winter. I found a webcam of a stork nest in the Netherlands. Fun to peek at!

In the picture the stork was standing in the grass; I put him on a nest.

This little Mrs Cardinal is from Petra Glorie's picture. I did not change much from the picture in this one. It just seemed the perfect composition the way she is looking at you.
Male cardinals are such a bright speck of color, specially when you see them in the snow, but the ladies are pretty too. That's what this one is saying... "hey, look at me." Or maybe it's "what are you looking at?" She has attitude.
I enjoyed watching a cardinal couple nest in the tree in front of our house last year. Their nest did not look all that well build. They raised two babies in it. I had never before seen how the adults exchange food: the male came flying to the nest, gave the food to the female and she then fed the babies. Fun to see and learning something about their habits!