Warming up

Oil on board, 15 x 20 inches

One morning, in the latticework of branches of this hawthorn that stood just behind my old studio, sat a robin, warming itself in the early morning sun.

I liked the idea of this single bird set against the almost flat, mosaic pattern of twigs.

Compositional rules would tell you that the bird should be placed on the Golden Section – the intersect of invisible lines that divide the picture into equal horizontal and vertical thirds – but I chose to move the robin slightly more to the edge, just to add a bit of interest and unpredictability.