I get a surprising number of e-mails from people who want to know when I'm going to do some more chicken paintings. Well, good news: I've got a series of them going up at Lost Coast Daily Painters over the next few weeks. I usually post on Tuesday, so go check it out if you're interested. As an experiment, I'm starting bidding at only 99 cents! What a crazy deal.
And — yes — all the paintings are of Eleanor, our Rhode Island Red (seen here in upper right, jostling for position with Abigail for the preferred nesting box on a day when all four of them got eggy at once). I'm sad to tell you that Eleanor died a few weeks ago–our first hen death. To our complete surprise, she had cancer–and lots of it–which was discovered after the bird vet put her to sleep and then opened her up to take a look. We're very sad about it but we're glad she didn't suffer long. I think the other chickens miss her, too–it's really thrown off their social life to have her gone.
So I've done a series of portraits of Eleanor as a tribute. She was a fine, dignified hen who didn't go in for tricks and hi-jinks like the other birds do. She was more of a true barnyard animal, more interested in laying eggs and digging for worms than goofing off and acting like a pet.