Bronzewing Bling

"Bronzewing Bling'
Mixed Media 90cm x 45cm

This is another in my native bird series..I love these tubby little pigeons. They make the most haunting noise and are a fairly dull colour for the most part but their wings have these  beautiful little flashy bronze, green, orange feathers...couldnt really capture them in paint. Included in this piece is a page from a vintage Longfellow book of poetry. I bought a pile of really old books on ebay quite cheaply (they arent rare) and I want to do them justice...hopefully they will live on through these mixed media pieces. You just can't reproduce the patina some of these pages have and they have really sparked a bit of a surge in ideas. Anyway, this poem seemed to capture the feeling of the piece even though April in Australia is Autumn, not Spring!

hoo?

Ok so you know how you have those pieces that paint themselves, you are in the zone and everything goes exactly as you planned it? This wasn't one of those times. I had a bit of a panic about halfway through - expensive canvas, lots of texture added and stuff that is hard to undo, colours not working etc...but I persevered...I am ok with it now, will have to let it sit for a while.  As for the subject matter, well I am on a bit of a bird thing at the moment, who knows why, and I think I might have been a bit inspired by John Brisson's awesome owl - check it out here http://downstairscreations.blogspot.com.au/. This is a largeish piece at 910mm x 910mm with lots of stuff - old book pages, metal foil, enamel, leaves, various texture mediums, watercolour paper and ink. Youn know, if there is any really good tip I can pass on to new artists - it is to not give up too easily. A lot of stuff I painted when I was younger, I either got bored with or gave up when I didn't get instant gratification. I was always worried about spending too much time on one piece, but what I hadn't worked out was the parts that were a struggle are when the learning takes place. :)

Croppy crop crop

'Evening Firebreak  No.2'
Pastel on Coloufix with alcohol underpainting

to crop or not to crop?

Firstly, my apologies to anyone following this blog - I have been a bit under the weather (cold and flu season here) so I haven't been posting or commenting on other blogs or doing much at all really except coughing and blowing my nose :( But to get myself going again I thought I would redo an old favourite, then I thought 'I wonder if a severe crop would work on this?'. I have a pastel only exhibition coming up in September and I am limited in the size of my pieces entered - half sheets only - and one big piece, so I thought maybe.....chop it in half? Anyone have any opinions on this? Would love to hear them? :) Have some new stuff to photograph and post so stay tuned!