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.


















