Festive Flock

I chose forty-two of the most colorful birds in the world for this painting. Of course, there are a great many more than that, so I had to narrow my list down to just some favorites. Then there was the trick of creating a composition for them! I wanted a vivid crowd of birds, but with enough negative space between them so that each was mostly visible. At the same time, I wanted only the birds, with no branches or other support structure. The birds themselves became the structure as they overlapped just enough to build up a pyramidal design.