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I named this latest painting “Lark (‘s) Bunting”, after a woman I’ve become friends with whose name is Lark. I was struck by her name when I met her, thinking I liked her parents for coming up with an unusual and poetic name for their baby girl. Turns out her mother is a big bird lover – and Lark commissioned me to do a Kestrel birth totem painting for her mom before Christmas. But at any rate, since meeting Lark, I’ve had it it the back of my mind to paint a lark bunting.

In researching the Lark Bunting, I discovered it is the state bird of Colorado – and has been since 1931. How could I have not known that?? A member of the sparrow family, it usually has a rather drab brownish-gray coloring – except the males during mating season. They dress up in a black tux with white wing patches in order to impress the ladies.

I painted Lark’s Bunting with a mixture of ultramarine blue, turquoise and a little Radiant Blue (Gamblin). The background is what is starting to feel like my signature – designed with lines that form color blocks, but in a somewhat random, fluid way, influenced by patterns of material from India.In this painting, that design has taken on a decidedly "pop art" feel.

I am happy to finally be painting birds. I’ve had a lifelong fascination with them, but always had trouble drawing them. Some of my earliest memories are of watching my father fill the bird feeder in our backyard every morning. Both he and my mother loved (and still love!) birds. My Dad, the caretaker, always makes sure the bird feeders are kept full, and my Mom, the researcher, searches through her bird books to identify new visitors to their backyard oasis for feathered friends, and shares the results with my Dad.

Growing up, I read voraciously – mostly books about animals. I read the entire series of the Audubon Nature Encyclopedia one summer, devouring the words and savoring the illustrations and photographs. I was always more interested in the illustrations than the photos – they somehow seemed more “real” to me than the photographs, maybe because they were more vibrantly colored and showed clearly the markings and beak shapes.

I owe a debt of gratitude to my parents who instilled in me a compassion for all creatures and a thirst for knowledge.