Meet Andy and Meadow, two young cockatiels. Andy is the brightly coloured yellow male on the left; Meadow is the gray female on the right. As is typical of birds, the males are more brightly coloured and attractive than the females, rather the opposite of the human condition! The discerning female chooses a male with bright colorful plumage as a signal of health, virility, and good genetic background, whereas the more drab plumage of the female may help to camouflage her on the nest. There tend to be more males around than females, and so the males must compete in order to win a female and pass on their genetic code.

Andy is seven months old and very talkative, while Meadow is two years old, quiet, and likes to cuddle (this sounds like a dating app profile, but I wanted to say something about them!).

I’m often asked how I decide what to paint. In this instance, while I was finishing the prior painting Shore Life, I had a hankering to paint some birds, either parrots or cockatiels. I don’t know why, it’s not something I can explain. Call it inspiration or the muse striking me. A family friend, Rimsha Siddiqui, has some 37 birds in her home, and she obliged by providing a half-dozen photos of different birds. I seized on the cockatiels right away; cockatiels and cockatoos have been a favourite of mine ever since seeing the talkative white cockatoo on detective Baretta’s shoulder (anyone else remember that TV series, starring Robert Blake?).  I also learned that while cockatoos and cockatiels are in the same family, cockatoos are larger and live about 70 years, whereas cockatiels are smaller and typically live about 10 years.

I used aspects of two different reference photos provided by Rimsha, one for the upper half of the birds and the other for their tails. This is because I liked their expression in one photo but the tails were best shown in another one. I was undecided about what to do for the background and I left it blank until near the end, when a splash of blue seemed sufficient. I wanted to keep the focus on the cockatiels. It’s always harder when the background is done later.