101 BIRDS - Painting #38

Is it bad to say that I love the paintings from my 101 Birds collection? Whenever I finish one, I think it is my favorite. But then I look back and feel like a mom and her children... I love them all. I'm waiting to come to a "full" number, like 40..... or be half way - 50, and then I'll show them all together. It will be like a big, colorful and whimsical bird quilt.

PS - I am LOVING comments on my giveaway! So much fun to read what your favorite soul food is - both the real food kind, and one for the artistic soul. Thank you!

101 BIRDS - Painting #37

101 BIRDS - Painting #36

8"x10" mixed media (collage, acrylics, casein, pan pastels, colored pencils, sharpie) on cardboard

I love Damian Rice, and could listen to his music for days. Which I did before, but not anymore because it makes me very melancholy and sad and it takes a while for me to shake it off. Today I enjoyed I did listen to him a little bit, and decided to write some of the lyrics on my little bird piece. Why not? Mr. Bird might have asked his lady friend just that?  Do you see the other lyrics or know the song?

101 BIRDS - Painting #35

 Here is a painting a did more than a month ago and forgot to share. It might be my favorite of all the birds. I had an urge to use the encaustic media and play with textures, so that's what I did.

I embedded real flowers (dry, pressed) in it. Couldn't believe that fragile hydrangea petals would survive the heat, but they did and turned out so lovely!

I added as much texture as I could, while leaving the color palette almost neutral. It was really a lot of fun and I could hardly make myself stop. After I finished, I immediately went to Judy Wise's blog to order her Encaustics Workshop e-book. Watched it, loved it, learned a lot but haven't done anything with it yet. I guess my muse has had enough wax play with this one painting for now.

Hope you'll enjoy the close ups of textures :-)

101 BIRDS - Painting #34

Remember the previous bird? I used a book page to cut out some of the petals on the flower. I painted white over them, so they almost don't show (see where the arrow points to).

The book page with the cut-outs was left on my table, because I don't just throw away stuff, as I'm sure you don't either. I used it as a stencil in one of the layers, and it grew into this grouping of flying wingy things. Love when something like that happens, it is probably my favorite part of this painting! 

I'm still in full color mode :-)

101 BIRDS - Painting #33

I can't get enough color these days.... Layers and layers create texture that makes me smile :)

I started the painting without a sketch, just with a palette knife and bright colors. Then continued with the brush and some collage until it was done. I hope you'll enjoy seeing the way it started and some phases in between. 

101 BIRDS - Painting #32

Moving on with my bird series. I love having a set theme and size, but freedom to do whatever I feel like. Many layers of color on this one...

101 BIRDS - Painting #31

Quick watercolor paintings like this one are still the hardest for me to achieve. For some reason I am scared to practice them more (even though I love them). This guy makes me smile, so he deserves to be number 31 in my bird series.

Happy weekend!

101 BIRDS - Painting #30

This painting came as a result of watching Milliande's CAPI (Create Art Portfolio Ideas Course) series. I watched her videos and couldn't wait to jump right into it. She goes much deeper than one painting, and I hope to do too. It is fascinating to watch her progression from scribbles to a series of work.  I wasn't impressed with my sketches at first, but kept going and now I'm totally in love with these bird creatures. Here is the video that got me started. Maybe it is something that will interest you too!

101 BIRDS - Painting #29

I feel so much better than previous day! I guess you can tell just by looking at the colors in this painting :-) 

Too much? Nooooo, I don't think so. I had the best time ever making this, I feel like all the grey that was inside me simply had to move for the happiness of all these colors.

 And because the colors were not enough, I needed to add stitches... I stitched and stitched until the needle broke in half. I like this so much I might have to do the whole process several more times. Hope you're having a colorful day too!

101 BIRDS - Painting #28

101 BIRDS - Painting #27

101 BIRDS - Painting #26

As much as I love the heavy use of colors, texture and layers, I also really love the clean look of loosely worked watercolor. I can rarely achieve that look, but in this case I think I got it :-)

101 BIRDS - Painting #25

101 BIRDS - Painting #24

Back to my bird series... Will I make it to 101 this year?

101 BIRDS - Painting #23

Moving on with the the 101 Birds series.... Today - layers of strong colors; almost the whole color wheel in this painting :-)

Thank you for the lovely comments on the previous post! I'm glad that so many want to try the technique. I'm sure that you will enjoy it as much as I did. Welcome to all the new readers! I hope to have time to visit your blogs and meet you soon :-)

101 BIRDS - Painting #22

It has been a while since I worked on my bird series. I planned to paint 101 bird paintings this year. As you can see - I didn't come far. It doesn't matter, I'll just continue until I have 101 paintings that are all the same size and subject. And then I'll do something with them... don't know what yet.

101 BIRDS - Painting #21

101 BIRDS - Painting #20

I don't know what I was thinking, but here she is...

101 BIRDS - Painting #19

When everything else fails - put dots on it. I love this guy...