Blue Jay

This is the second bird in my backyard birds collection. The Blue jay is a colorful companion to my Cardinal model. Because I had already made a bird, I followed a lot of the same outlines for the design. Blue jays are a slightly larger bird, with a bigger head, tail, and wings.

The biggest difficulty was the bird's iconic eye detailing, specifically the black lines with white around that wrap around the eyelids. There was also the challenge of making the black and blue striped wings, and making them look like the picture at that scale was not easy.

I opted for a technique that achieved a similar effect, using quarter tiles in different hues of blue, which allowed small black spots to show through. Together, the two birds form a vibrant pair, and will soon be accompanied by another.