Mixed media bird

I felt like drawing another imaginary bird. Earlier this month I watched a quick video from Carla Sonheim called “Crazy Birds Tutorial”.  Carla has great ideas for getting started and this is a fun one. 

I made a few sketches using the ‘crazy birds’ approach and posted the first bird here a few weeks ago.  This second bird is a mixed media piece:

In the sun's light...

 I used some masking, stippling and sgraffito techniques from Diane Culhane’s “Paint Your Garden” workshop, too.

Birds, flowers and sheep

Beginning with a surface covered in random colors of paint, I found imaginary flowers – next came birds (a favorite subject) and then, out of the blue, little sheep:

I think it's a happy painting :-)

 Masking, sgraffito, stippling, blown blots techniques, again, from "Paint Your Garden", an online workshop by Diane Culhane.

Class is out...

Diane Culhane's online workshop, “Paint Your Garden” that is.  Currently I am working on some assignments that I made up for myself and I will share them upon completion :-)

However, to catch up on what has been going on… I have been working toward my goal of freer expression in this medium, and I have been having fun taking chances, letting go and enjoying the characteristics of the paint. 

One of last week’s assignments was a continuation of creating mostly visual texture by way of frottage, blown blots and splattering - fun and messy.  The different techniques Diane has been teaching build on themselves; the layering, the techniques of masking and sgraffito (love sgraffito) combine with the newer ones and, voilà, a menu of texturing options.

Here are the vignettes:

Masking is key.

The triangles at the bottom appeal to me...

 

A fav -  because of the semi-opaque layers and the dots (!)

This one is different.  I sort of followed the paint.

I love it when I can hardly wait to get into my studio and begin :-)