Art Journal Bird

 Recently I added some spreads to one of my art journals and forgot to share them. This first one is just cute, fat little bird. 

I just felt like doing something with colored pencils. My granddaughter's Crayola colored pencils were close to me at the time, so I grabbed them and got to coloring. He's a rather chubby bird, isn't he? LOL. I like him though. I also like the quote.

The man who has no imagination has no wings. 

Fairy Girl and Her Little Bird

I haven't been able to get into my studio for awhile. It's unusable temporarily, so I've not been able to paint in for what seems like forever. I miss my paintbrushes! But I felt like doing something creative this evening, so I decided to work in one of my small art journals.

I used my Jane Davenport Magic Wand Pencils for this. I love how smooth the colored pencils are. And of course, I always love creating some sort of Fairy Art. That's always fun. Just something quick to do while I have the energy and time to do it. One of the fun things about art journaling is that you don't have to obsess about anything, or worry about trying to make it perfect. There's not really any right or wrong with an art journal. It's just about doing what you feel like doing. 

I hope I'll get to use my studio again soon though. I'm kind of going through paint withdrawals. In the meantime, I'll keep doing some art journaling here and there until I can use my studio again.

For the Birds

I've just been having so many great wildlife encounters this week, I feel like Snow White or Cinderella. Now if i could just get these little critters to do some housework for me. :)

This little bird was out by my door, chirping and chirping and chirping this morning. I opened the door to see him sitting there and chirping away. We had a nest in one of our trees so I'm thinking he may have come out of there. I hurried to get my camera so I could snap some pics.

He sat there and posed quite still for me, long enough for me to get a few digital photos. This one was the best. I went to get my phone to get a few pics on there too, but when I got back he got spooked and flew away. I'm glad I got this shot though. Such a pretty little bird. 

Here's to capturing even more nature over the summer. 

Whimsical Birds and Flowers

The second painting that I created in the studio this week is the result of an online workshop created by artist, Brandi Dayton. I've followed Brandi for awhile, and I absolutely love her style of painting. It's just so warm and colorful and happy. So I was thrilled to see her offer this workshop, even though her generosity to make this workshop free was born out of a personal tragedy, which was the loss of her son. You can read about this workshop, and this first lesson here:

Birds and the Bees Workshop by Brandi Dayton

The first lesson involves whimsical birds and flowers, which is what I've created. I can't even tell you how much fun I had creating this painting. And Brandi's videos were very well done and easy to follow. I loved seeing her process, and it was great to use colored pencils in a mixed media painting, which I'd never really done before. So this is the result of the first lesson in Brandi's workshop.

This mixed media painting is a combination of acrylics (the background), colored pencils (the flower stems and leaves, and the birds), Neocolor II Crayons (the flower petals), and paint markers (white outlines and white dots). I loved the whole process of this painting and I definitely want to use the techniques I learned from Brandi in other paintings. That is what I love about watching other artists work: it inspires me to try new things and approach things in brand new ways. And that always helps me to grow as an artist, which is always one of my primary goals.

Bird Silhouette Painting

I've always wanted to do a silhouette painting of a bird, so I thought I'd give it a shot yesterday when I was in my studio. I still had the Spring-thing in my head...so I created this Bird Silhouette painting.

I used a 6" canvas for this that I painted with craft acrylics in the robins egg blue color. Then I created a template of a bird by drawing the bird shape on some cardstock and then cutting it out. I traced the template on the canvas and then painted it with black acrylic. (You could use a stencil if you have one.) Next I distressed the edges of the canvas with a combination of paint and Distress Ink. And I finished it off with a little matching satin flower, just to give it a sense of depth.

This is a very simple, crafty project and I think anyone could do it. I love how it turned out. I may do some more birds in the future because I had such fun with this.

Little Bird Gift Bag

I should be thinking about Valentine's Day, for crafty purposes, but when I went into my studio yesterday (which is outside, and I had to walk in the 20+ degree weather to get to it) I was thinking Spring! So I created some spring projects to share. This one is my Little Bird Gift Bag.

I started with a pre-made muslin gift bag. I stamped on a cute spring bird, along with the "imagine" text. And then I added a matching satin flower. I love this color of blue--very spring-like. These would make great little gift bags, or favor bags for a party. And they are so quick and easy to make too. Just something very simple, but elegant too. And really, they could be used any time of year, not just for Spring!

Exotic Bird Digital Collage

The 3 Muses blog is currently having an Exotic Bird challenge, so I've created the piece below to add to my growing collection of Digital Collages.

My "exotic" parrot appears to be all decked out in his party hat.  The little text snippet makes me think of the imaginary story being told by one person to another after perhaps one too many cocktails.

"So I was sitting there at the party...drinking my 5th martini...when all of a sudden, this bird came down the walk..."

Cheers!

Discovery ATC

This ATC is my final project as a visiting artist for the month of April at the Gingersnap Creations blog. The theme for this color challenge was Red and Gold.

I started with a piece of ATC-sized illustration board, which I covered with a piece of scrap wallpaper that is a metallic gold color.  Next I added the Discover vellum paper embellishment and the red ribbon near the bottom. I added a 3-D bird cutout, and also another egg cutout to repeat the one on the vellum image. And I finished it off with some red rhinestone gems on each of the top corners of the ATC.

I really enjoyed my time as visiting artist. It helped me stretch my wings a bit as an artist and step out of my comfort zone a bit too, which is always a good thing to do as an artist.

Dam Bird

Here in Northwest Ohio, we have these birds called Herons. I don't recall ever seeing them before I moved here. But then again, maybe I was just not paying attention.  Either way, I find them to be beautiful birds.  So when I saw this one  during an outing to Independence Dam State Park one summer, I had to get a photo for my photography collection.