Out On A Limb: 12

© Out On A Limb: 12
mixed-media collage, recycled catalog cover
& wrapping paper, vintage illustrations, watercolor,
colored pencil, acrylic sealer. 6"x6" on wood panel (2012)
Price: $85.

Yesterday was gray, cold and wet, wet, wet. I thought I'd cheer myself up by posting colorful parakeets. This morning is equally drab, so here's another one of the bright bird collages I'm working on for March's Expecting to Fly exhibit at 5th Street Gallery.

I was determined to use this peacock - and following along with the black & white/color bird pairings of earlier collages in the series, it was paired with a black & white engraving. A partridge was also in the print, and it was echoed via a gorgeous, colored partridge.

So where are those birds? Well, the black & white ones are the backside of the parakeet print and the colored partridge is back in the files. Why? I goofed. It seemed that the b&w print needed to be toned down in order not to compete with the beautiful plumage of the colored birds. I wanted to use paper to achieve a muted effect and chose a golden-hued piece of vintage tissue. Well, it was a too opaque and obscured the background.

Onto Plan B, which turned into a challenge. Since the series title is Out On A Limb, I wanted the peacock on a limb. I hit on the idea of using a peacock feather as a branch. Piece of cake, right? Wrong it took hours to cut out the feather from a recycled piece of wrapping paper. Then, once it was done, gulp, I decided the collage needed another one. After cutting out another entire feather, only part of it was used. So it goes.