Working small, thinking big

Blue Tit



Looking back at the pieces that I created at the start of the year, I realised how much I loved painting on a small scale and on patterned fabric. I liked how working on an often floral background makes a background for the birds. This completely changes the appearance of the birds and makes them have much more of a character.

I have tried to recreate this idea by doing another small bird onto floral fabric. What I like about using the backgrounds of patterned fabrics, is that you get to see part of that pattern through the paint and other parts are completely blocked out. I think that I would have liked to have taken more time to make that blue tit more realistic as the way I have painted it makes it seem smooth and tidy whereas the feathers actually created a ‘fluffy’ texture to the birds.

These pieces are all leading up to an exhibition, Between the Lines, that I am participating in with 9 emerging artists. This is an exhibition that is taking place in Walcot Chapel in Bath on the 13th - 16th April.

Driving me crazy!

There was only going to be so much time before I went a little mad from bird over load. I needed to look at them differently to be able continue with them!

 I researched into different ways of drawing and painting birds and came across some collaged ones. I thought that layering the different papers broke down the bird into simple blocks of colour and shape rather than looking at it in detail. This approach was something that I wanted to try out. 



Collage Bird

Here’s my attempt!

I thought that by breaking them down in shapes would help me to see them differently and to make them different from the rest! I like the simple colours in this one that helps to suggest the different colours of feathers that the bird it was based on had. Breaking the colours down into shapes makes the birds a lot easier and simpler to do. I think I will definitely try this out again!



After having a tutorial, it was discussed that I could take the collaged bird that I had done and put it into a location. As my birds are about their locations, I thought that this would be nice to try. Now, my photoshop skills aren’t good, well nonexistent, so this is just a quite roughly put together idea of what putting my birds into a different location could look like. So here it is..



Location