Hummingbirds and Paintings

For the first time, I got a hummingbird trapped in my house that I didn’t care about being careful and gentle with.

See, I have an oil painting that is drying – it’s at second stage (base, dry, detail, dry, touchups) so it’s wet and hanging out in the livingroom on an easel.

And that hummingbird was within INCHES of my oil painting a few times.

I think the bird was so interested in the painting because, while right now the middle looks like a white blob to the seasoned eye, it will eventually look much more like an orchid than it does right now. That would be the world’s biggest orchid and the hummingbird was probably thinking ‘SCORE! My friends won’t believe this!’

Or maybe it was simply trying to get high on the fumes from the paint thinners. I don’t know. But it was obsessed.

So here I am, running around the house holding the easel, trying to tighten up the screws on my easel, keep the painting on the easel, and be where ever the hummingbird is not.

Lord, that was better than cardio, because cardio is not usually accompanied by sheer wailing panic.

But the painting is feather free, the bird found his own way outside and I don’t end up having a photo of myself cleaning oil off a bird like a Gulf coast environmentalist.