January 23, 2012

European Green Woodpecker

European Green Woodpecker

What a busy start to the New Year...

Several friends have commented that I haven’t updated my website or contributed new information to my Blog for some time so thought I had better do that before the month of January slips away.  Many pieces have been in the works including the one above which I have titled ”Cruising for Ants.”  Getting to know people on line is a worldly experience.  After taking the first Mixed Media class with Jane La Fazio, nine of us decided to keep in touch via email.  We share images of what we are working on plus new ideas, interesting blogs or useful products. We live in both the west and east coast of the US, in Canada and two ladies are from England.  That brings me back to the woodpecker above.  Gill, one of the members created a mixed media quilt with a painted image of the green woodpecker.  I had never heard of such a bird and was immediately captivated.   It turns out they are fairly common in the British Isles, often being spotted on the ground where they forage for ants, their favorite food.  So when New Pieces started a new monthly challenge and the theme was “birds” I immediately knew what I had to do.  This guy was a ton of fun to create using an image traced on to tissue, applied to fabric then watercolored.  I love this technique and will use it again, but I prefer to use my own sketched images.  Stay tuned for more....