Peach-Faced Lovebird in Oil Pastels

About four years ago, my husband was hanging out in his garage with the doors open and in flew this little guy...a peach-faced lovebird! My hubby nabbed him and brought him in to me (no, I didn't believe the bird just FLEW into his shop...). Originally from Africa, this lovebird was far from home showing up in New Hampshire! We put ads in the papers, but never found his owners. "Bird," yep, that's his name, became a part of our family. The children love him and he seems to not mind the noise and activity that four children seem to create.

This isn't my Bird, but he looks just like this!

One of my younger art students loves animals, so I thought drawing Bird would be a great idea! My student had enjoyed working with craypas and baby oil on watercolor paper, so we used that technique. I had downloaded some images of peach-faced lovebirds to have on hand just in case Bird was being tempermental and we set up camp in front of his cage to observe and draw.

Here's my student with our model.

Bird must have loved the attention because he sat there on his perch and looked very handsome! When we looked away too long, he started performing and perching on the side of the cage so he could look upside down at us while we worked. What a great reminder to look at the subject you are drawing more than your paper!

Her drawings came out lovely--here's the final one where she used oil pastels for the bird and then watercolor pencils with a bit of water to soften the edges to create a nice, outdoorsy atmosphere for Bird.

Who would believe a bird could come in such colors!
It's nice to see Bird outdoors instead of behind the bars of the cage.