Walking through the forest in the colorful season of autumn, as an artist I am excited when I see all the combinations of yellow, orange and red contrasting with the green mosses and lichens, accentuated by the dark brown of the rotting wood. It becomes a real feast for a painter, especially if he is from Europe, if in this colorful world a blue bird with a black necklace and white spots suddenly appears. Where I live, none of the birds have completely blue-colored plumage, so when I saw this nice fence on an old property in southern Ontario, the idea came to mind to use it for my first blue jay painting. - CB