Bird

In this piece, I wanted to capture the fleeting, delicate presence of a small bird—one of those quiet, watchful moments you catch out of the corner of your eye. I began with soft pencil work to build its shape, letting the graphite guide the structure and mood. The bird’s head and tail remain mostly in greyscale, allowing its form to feel grounded and a little mysterious, almost as if it’s still deciding whether to fully reveal itself. Its eye was especially important to me—it needed to hold a sense of gentle alertness, something observant but not startled.

Then came the burst of color. I leaned into magenta and a vivid fuchsia, letting those tones bloom across the breast and wing. I didn’t want to keep the color strictly inside the lines—it felt more true to the spirit of the bird to let it breathe a bit beyond the form. The result, I think, is a sort of transition: a bird emerging from sketch into life, caught between quiet shadow and bright presence. I wasn't working from a specific species, but birds like the Rose-breasted Grosbeak or Purple Finch must have been sitting quietly in my memory, lending their colors to the work.

Ink on paper / 30 x 21 cm