New Painting & Animals

I like painting little, stress-free pieces between larger, more detailed pieces as a bit of a break. I like to tell myself that it doesn't matter if the little pieces don't come out well, but myself doesn't believe it & I stress just as much. I painted this one today. Originally the idea was to have an abstract-like crow on that background, but I changed my mind at the last minute. It's called "Among Them," which is a bit of an inside joke between Charles & I. It's a 6x8" acrylic on canvasboard. I used some irridescent white for the fog at the bottom of the painting, but it's always virtually impossible to photograph well, the way it plays with light. This is a decent enough representation of the painting, at any rate.
In other news, I believe I saw a baby cardinal in our front yard today. It's about time for the chick explosion, so we'll see what the upcoming days bring. The wrens seem to have fledged & moved on. We've seen one or two of the brown headed nuthatches on occassion since they left the nest along our driveway (click the wrens link for more info on that, too.) I was delighted yesterday to spot this baby bluebird on my car.
It's been like Snow White's forest here over the last couple of weeks, which has been delightful. After the heavy rains the other night our backyard was completely flooded (at least for a day.) Charles (who sometimes mentions his poor eyesight, although he seems pretty eagle-eyed to me,) spotted something moving through the water. It turned out to be a broad-headed skink, about 8" long. We've also had a brown rat coming around for scraps & bird seed, but he moves so fast he's impossible to photograph (so far, anyway.) The other day I managed to get this picture of a raccoon, a cottontail rabbit, a cardinal & a blue jay all in one;