Reworked Paintings

I reworked some of my paintings and collaged a couple of pieces I did on gessoed muslin. It's quite satisfying when I'm inspired to go back to something or figure out how to incorporate into a larger separate work I've already done. I love birds so I have three here--a parrot, a pileated woodpecker, and I forget what the other bird was supposed to be. I really like how the pileated woodpecker turned out. I had left this one for a few years. I had done it in Derwent Inktense watercolor pencils. They are water-soluble but they just don't give you the saturated color of regular water colors. I didn't like the faded look. The outlines I made to create the figures showed in a way I didn't like. So I used tube watercolors and Luminarte iridescent watercolors and acrylics. I have a boxful of different brands of tube paint. I love the Luminarte paints. I didn't like some of the elements in this piece so I covered them with a few coats of Daniel Smith Watercolor Ground. This stuff is one of my favorite art supplies. It has added a lot of flexibility in the way I can work. Then I just painted over the ground. It has some texture but that is fine by me--probably wouldn't work if it did. If you use it on metal you should sand the surface and rough it up a bit.

I painted this bird on gessoed muslin (before I discovered the Watercolor Ground). It's a fantasy representation of an actual species but now I can't find what it was--pretty sure it was a tropical species. The pinkish paper is beautiful--the surface and color are lovely and the paper has some weight and heft to it. The dye job is superb. I got this from Pulparazzi on etsy in 2012. Wow, somehow I thought I got it a few months ago. My idea of time is rather warped. It looks like she is focusing more on paper goods at present, rather than handmade. She used to have a lot more colors of paper available.


The parrot piece is done is the same sort of media and process.

This is my bird with her colors reversed. It turns out a red version of the African Grey has been selected for and bred. I am not surprised--breeders are always selecting for bizarre and exaggerated traits to create a new version of an animal, whether a dog, cat, horse, or in this case, parrot.

OK I am tired of writing and I am sure most people are bored to death reading about the minutiae of my process!

Cat and birds on wood with paper collage