Humming Bird

Hello everyone!

I had an art journal spread (18" x 9.5") painted with a vibrant purple color, leftover from another project. It reminded me of exotic birds and that was my inspiration for the Humming Bird. I adore these little creatures, because they are so delicate and beautiful. They are absolutely stunning!

I started spraying, on top of the purple, with Yellow and White Media Misters, but at some point I realized that the pages were not gessoed! The colors soaked into the paper and I wasn’t getting the result I was looking for. I paused and took a step back. And then the idea came to me.

Since I didn’t want to cover up everything with gesso and loose that beautiful purple on the background, I took some used baby wipes that were dry and had so many colors on them. Tore them into pieces and glued them with Media matte medium, to cover up the areas I didn’t like, mostly around the edges of the pages. And then I applied with my fingers a light coat of white gesso to the rest of the page.

After that, I roughly sketched the bird and some flowers with a soft pencil. I used Media Translucent White to base coat my figures and then started coloring them. First the bird, then some leaves and vines to give my painting kind of a border, and then the flowers. 

I worked the background by dabbing layers of colors with kitchen roll paper. I was using one that’s thick and heavy duty and it gave me a really nice blending and texture. For the darker areas of the background, I also used Caran D’ Ache Neocolor II Watersoluble Pastels.

I took a big flat brush and lightly brushed with Media Translucent White to give the impression of sunbeams coming through the flowers and foliage.

When I started painting these little white flowers, my 4-year-old daughter told me they looked like Fairies! So, I kept them white with some purple details in order to give them this airy and whimsical look Fairies are supposed to have.

For the leaves and vines, I used Media Fluids “Prussian Blue Hue”, “Phthalo Turquoise”, “Cobalt Turquoise Hue”, “Blue Green Light” and “Primary Yellow”. I varied the color mixtures in order to get different shades for the foliage.

I painted the Hibiscus flowers first with Caran D’ Ache Neocolor II Watersoluble Pastels. Then, I went over with Media Fluids “Primary Magenta”, , “Prussian Blue Hue”, “Phthalo Turquoise” and “Primary Yellow”, because I wanted to make colors even more vivid and bright,  especially those purple hues. 

I really liked the collage with the baby wipes, because it gave a very natural, organic texture that matched perfectly with this wild forest scene!

I hope you like it too! 

Thank you for visiting my blog!

Until next time, 

Be Brave, Be who You want to Be!