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Day 28: Ready for What Comes Next

Red-bellied woodpecker painting with raised head and bold posture against a geometric green patterned background, original acrylic bird artwork
"Ready For what comes Next" 6x6, acrylic on panel, framed

I have mixed feelings as I approach the end of this 31-day practice—mostly relief, but some others in there too. The studio has been far too cold to paint in, so I’ve been back to using acrylics indoors, with the heat cranked high.

As much as I can’t quite fathom swapping my oils for acrylics long term, I do very much appreciate how much easier acrylics are to use with stencils. I can wash the paint off with water after each use, and I don’t have to worry about colors turning to mud or ruining a perfectly good image by placing a stencil over wet paint.

Today’s painting is of a red-bellied woodpecker—apparently named such because “red-headed,” which feels more appropriate, was already taken,  and they do sometimes have a reddish-pink tinge on their lower bellies, something more obvious to the ornithologists who were studying them by hand than to us, more casual observers.

I was drawn to this one’s posture: head lifted, chest out. There’s a sense of readiness in it—steady, alert, and facing forward. The geometric pattern in the background reinforces that feeling for me, almost like a structure or framework behind the bird, holding it in place as it prepares for whatever comes next.

 

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Denise Hopkins

January 28, 2026

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