Bird of the Day- Woodpecker

Pileated Woodpecker- 6" x 8" -Digital over graphite by Greg Newbold

Another in the Egg book series. This one of the Pileated Woodpecker was a fun challenge. I was asked to make it look like the bird was attending to it's egg rather than pecking away at the tree. I decided the best way to do this was to have the woodpecker's head be silhouetted against the dark opening of the nest hole. It served the secondary purpose of creating a nice value contrast to lead the eye to the bird's head. I also had some fun with a little sunset lighting in the background. All of these were meant to be simple backgrounds in order to keep focus on the bird and the egg. The texture of the tree was fun to paint. Have a look at the drawing here.