The King of Ruby Kinglets

The Palette

“sap green underneath everything, even the red.”

“A Ruby-crowned Kinglet rendered in oil on a near-black ground.”

Ruby-crowned Kinglets are tiny — barely bigger than a hummingbird — and they almost never sit still. This one was painted from photographs I took in my parents' garden. I wanted the bird to feel jewel-like against the ground, so the panel was toned a deep ink before I started, and the body was built up in glazes of sap green and cadmium yellow. The crest was the very last thing I painted, in a single pass.