Cardinal Painting - Progress Images

Here are the progress images for my cardinal painting.  I took a photo every other day while I was working on it.  Generally after settling on a strong design, I then start work on the line art.  The line art has to be solid before I begin painting.  If I am not confident with my drawing, the painting will be much more difficult.  I always work background to foreground and light to dark.  The subject (cardinal) is always the last thing to be painted.  I build up the paint darker and darker as well as more and more saturated.  This was a large painting (14" x 20") but it did not take me that long mostly because I only used transparent paint.  If I ever have to use opaques, this sometimes makes the progress a lot longer.