Nesting Catbird

I loved everything about the setting for Nesting Catbird although there wasn't a lot of color to work with in my reference. I decided to start by adding peek through color and establish my value pattern with a hard pastel and alcohol underpainting. I worked in the rest of the painting with pastels from hard to soft to develop the background wall, the cat and the old freezer. I started working the hay from dark to the lightest highlights with hard pastel as my last marks assuring the cat would "nest" within the hay and not on top.