Artist & Painter Rebecca Latham’s Nature & Wildlife Art

This is a new miniature I painted that went to England for a miniature art exhibit. It is a finch with apple blossoms and is a little smaller than 4×6. My Dad has some awesome flowering fruit trees that I love …which inspired this painting… (I have ’spring fever’ -I’m really wishing for spring around here to look like spring. :p )

The little bird isn’t life-sized…which I really would have loved to paint him (I love painting things life-sized and the challenge to make them look like they will walk off my artboard ). The piece was painted to be shown in this exhibition which has an image area limit, and he had to be arranged compositionally in the painting with the flowers…this was the most pleasing arrangement that I came up with.

I really would like to paint the concept as a 6×8 or a little larger sized miniature so that I would have more space for everything… (Maybe the next painting… lol!)

I just sketched out a few designs for some new paintings of western hummingbirds.  They have such a variety of them out here in the western states.  In Minnesota and the rest of the eastern US we have only the ruby throated hummingbird species visiting.  The two hummingbirds featured in my sketches in this post are the Allen’s hummingbird and the Rufous hummingbird. 

I have finished my bluebird and indian paintbrush wildflowers miniature painting.  Here is an image of the completed painting :).  

I am finishing up on my Mountain Bluebird piece - I should have it done tomorrow sometime.  I’ll post the final image of the painting as soon as I can.  

This is how my watercolor painting of the Mountain Bluebird and Indian Paintbrush wildflowers are looking at the moment.  I will be bringing out more of the habitat around the bird before it’s finished — but it is nearly complete.

The painting is 5×7 inches.  

I’ve painted a bit on my mountain bluebird commission recently.  Here’s a snapshot of the detail - it’s coming along fairly well.  I will have to set this piece aside for a few days next week as I need to have my waterfowl/duck artwork finished fairly soon.

I am painting on my mountain bluebird and indian paintbrush commissioned miniature today.  I don’t think it’s quite far along enough to post in the blog or commissions pages at the moment, but I plan to get a more recent picture of it online soon.  The bluebird itself has progressed well, but the flower blossoms take a little longer as they have such an  intricate structure.

I have been painting on my canadian goose today.  I’d post another photo of the goose in progress, but I think most visitors to my blog wouldn’t be able to tell what I’ve worked on.

The picture I did include in this post (right) is a hummingbird sketch from my sketchbook.

I had a few visitors to my studio today — The songbirds just found a few birdfeeders outside of my studio that I put out for them.  I am hoping this will help me gather references and study them more easily since they will literally be right outside my window .

Below is a sketch I made in my sketchbook of one of my new visitors.

Today I started working on the color phase of this bluebird painting. :)  Right now I think the full color painting is not quite far enough to post yet, but my rough sketch for the piece is pictured left.  The painting is a commission, a 5×7 miniature.

I have also been working on finishing another work in progress that has been sitting in my studio for a few months. 

I just finished this new hummingbird and Indian Paintbrush painting.  I am finishing up on a number of new pieces to give some of my galleries a new selection — this one will go to Galleries West Fine Art in Jackson Hole, WY (www.gallerieswestjacksonhole.com).   Stop in if you’re in the area.

I saw this hummingbird earlier this year while we were studying in Arizona.  I thought it would look stunning next to an Indian Paintbrush blossom.