‘Joy Returns With The Morning ~ Red-Headed Woodpeckers,’ a limited edition reproduction of an original fine art painting copyright avian artist Susan A. Walton.

This artwork derives its name and inspiration from Psalm 30:5.

This original painting was carried out on a 22 x 30 inch sheet of very heavy cotton watercolor paper, framed in a dusty green suede mat with a fillet and matching frame which made quite the impression.

While the original painting has been sold, the art is available as a smaller limited edition print.

Featuring yearling Red-Headed Woodpeckers flying through a forest dotted with flowering dogwood and redbud, a landscape typical of the woodland ravines and gullies of the bluffs along the Mississippi River and its tributaries. This painting and its prints evoke a cool early spring morning, before the fog has dissipated.

The first idea for the painting came during a trip my mother and I took upon an invitation from a friend we knew from volunteering at a historic site. The site is called Cahokia Mounds. The friend resided up towards Kampsville, in a very beautiful part of Illinois. On the way, a gorgeous woodpecker swooped across the road in front of us and landed on a guard railing- the first good look at a red-headed woodpecker I had up to that point.

Some time later, this bird species made an even bigger impression when I saw one flying away from me and shooting up like a bottle rocket into a shingle oak at my workplace in St. Charles, Missouri, while I was on break. It was such a stunning sight compared to the woodpeckers I usually see with its prominent white wing markings that I dropped what I was doing and did a small sketch as a memento.

But it wasn’t until spring, when the dogwoods and redbuds started blooming in a valley located in a favorite park in Illinois, when it occurred to me : what a great setting that park would be for a pair of these showy birds.

The birds are young, but they have survived their first winter, and the promise and joy of spring is upon them.

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