Tuesday 1 April 2008

Goldfinch

I have a dozen that visit my garden. It was one of the birds I first ID'd when I took up birdwatching a couple of years ago. They were perching on top of the lampposts in North Dock, Roker, and I was amazed that something so beautiful could have been on my doorstep all these years. For an artist I'm pretty unobservant at times.

That was it, I was hooked. So now I'm an artist, and a twitcher.
My Dad also has goldfinches visiting his garden at Ballaugh, and the other day we were both stood at our respective kitchen windows, talking to each other about which birds were feeding at the time. Goldfinch, watercolour, March 08Because he seemed so excited about the goldfinches, and because I love him so much, I thought I'd paint this for him. I'll pop it in the post to you in Eire later this week, I promise Dad.

4 comments:

Jared Shear said...

Beautiful finch!....you've captured that moment in time in the life of a bird....no you are inspiring me to see what type of flying fowl I have out my window.

Yellow said...

Jared, it's well worth doing. Everything looked like LBJ's (little brown jobs) to start off with, then after a while I wondered how I could ever have been so blind.

Anonymous said...

This is superb Steph. As Jared says, you've caught the bird as I see it. What a God blessed Dad I am to have such talented, and kind, daughters. I look forward with baited breath to see the real painting. I'll be hounding Postman Pat (yes, that is his name) till he delivers it.

Andrea and Kim said...

Awe, this is the sweetest post. It brought tears to my eyes thinking of you and your dad talking about the birds out your windows. You know how precious it is to have your dad there. And to paint him such a beautiful, precious gift just because you love him so much! I can imagine tears in his eyes when he opens it.

Thanks so much for sharing this incredibly beautiful story and painting with us all.

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