The next nest

How was your Labor Day weekend? Mine was mostly quiet. I didn't even work in the studio. What I did do was a sleepover with our 6 year old granddaughter. There is nothing in the world sweeter than a conversation with a 1st grader and nothing more fun than the games she comes up with. Bath time means word games, movie time means picnics on the bed and snuggling together, playing outside means chasing bubbles and playing tag. She kept me on my toes the whole time.

And of course at this house, getting together also means drawing and painting time. She left us with this drawing and just cracked me up with the "AKA granddaughter". 

I'm made of complimentary colors :)

After all that fun I did get back to my own painting this week and finished another nest- actually 2 nest paintings.... remember the nest I got out of the tree in my yard?

Birthplace

This is the first painting to come from that nest. It's 18x18 and this time I used copper leaf instead of gold. I'm not quite sure how I feel about the copper. It's the only copper one so far and I don't know if I'll do another. Just that little bit of color shift in the background created some color issues in the nest itself so we'll see.

And it looks like I've started something.... I was recently gifted these 2 nests to add to my collection. The little bluebird nest on the left was my reference for the most recent painting.

The Nursery

16x16

Now it's time to prep some more canvases and figure out which nest is next. See ya'll soon.

So many paintings... so little time.

Hope everyone's good. I've been busy in the studio since the last post. Finished this nest....

And then painted this one..... sold another one.....

Then for a change of pace I started this landscape with a flowering tree. I wanted to play with some different colors and shapes. I've done a couple of other pieces similar to this one and love the blue-greens against the gold leaf.

From this angle you can see the texture and shine of the gold. I'm using metallic gold acrylic to drybrush gold along the edge of the leaf. It softens the edge and makes a good transition between the 2 areas. And it shows off the texture too. Love the texture!

So right after starting this landscape I found an old nest in a tree in my yard. I got on a step stool to get some shots of it to paint from. It was well seated in between the branches so it wasn't easy to take photos.

The next day I decided to see if I could get the nest out of the tree without damaging it. It was tricky but I did it with only losing a couple of little twigs. 

Of course, now I'm dying to paint the new nest!!! It's going to take some discipline to make myself finish the landscape first. If I don't, who knows when I'll get back to it. There are so many nest paintings I want to do- bigger, smaller, different angles, doing some with copper leaf instead of gold.... 

So many paintings- so little time. LOL

Progress Report

 Well, here's an update on a canvas from last post. Remember the crazy one with the straw glued to it and gesso over that? This is where it is now. I decided to apply copper leaf to most of the canvas.

And now there are layers and dribbles of phthalo blue and cobalt teal acrylic. I can blame this part on Eddie Izzard While I was painting (just staring at the canvas actually) I was watching his show Dress to Kill and there on the stage behind him was this gorgeous backdrop that looked like gold, copper and blue. I looked at the tv, looked at the white mess of a canvas, looked at the tv again and said AHA! So there we have it. Where does it go from here? I have no idea, I wonder who else I have on DVD.

PS: LOVE THIS PART..... Engelbert Humperdink