As another part of my mother’s 80th birthday gift I collected some of her poems that she’s been writing over the past few years and made a book (using Shutterfly) of them. I used mainly photos to illustrate the poems, but I painted a couple of pictures especially for the book. This was one of them.

Her poem is about the strangeness and loneliness of being on your own after the loss of your spouse (my dad died in 2010), but has a hopeful refrain–‘but hey, the birds are still singing’. As I was musing over what to paint for this poem, I looked outside and saw this lovely bright yellow finch enjoying himself on our echinachea flowers. I quickly snapped several photos of him and then used several shots to compose this illustration. I love the brightness and hope of this idea.