Birds Nest with Cut Flowers (Mixed Media Art)
The botanical theme continues with this work (and its companion, Birds Nest with Staghorn Totem). We began with a cut piece of unprimed canvas. We applied gesso to improve the work surface and put down an ‘underlayment’ design in acrylic paint. Once this was dry, the entire thing was painted over in acrylics (a blended gray), that allowed just a hint of the underlying design to show through. With this sort of blank slate, the real work began. Again the method was one of spontaneity, with no specific outcome in mind. The first thing that occurred was that this was a work in the “still life” tradition and that in this case, it would include a rounded vase. The vase was put down via compass, but then it seemed like it would be nice to have other circles in the picture as well, so those were ‘randomly’ drawn in the same manner. After that came a fast and furious phase of wild mark making and then the picture was left to sit. On return, it was plain as day that the marks at the center of the picture together took on the form of some sort of bird, or at least a portion of one. Thus, the vase for cut flowers also doubles as a nest for the bird and things went from there. The cut flowers, vase textures and bird were put down with blended oil pastels, with the bird and vase/nest then getting a thin wash of acrylic paint as accent. Layers were scratched into repeatedly. Then more pastels, and so forth. Finally, various art papers were cut to create other flowers, and to accent the nest/vase and even the feathers of the bird. A bit of leather was thrown in for good measure. The result is a sort of still life dreamscape with lovely, vibrant colors, imaginary flowers, and a mysterious bird at the center of it all.
This work measures ___ x ___ including the frame. Due to its large size and fragile nature (the large piece of glass in the frame) there are extra shipping charges.