Play Date - Hand Painted Birds

A friend of ours wanted to try creating something she saw in Somerset magazine - Forget Me Nots - cute little vintage collages featuring hand painted birds, by Traci Lyn Huskamp.  See a link to her blog for a sample of what was in the magazine.
http://thereddoor-studio.blogspot.com/2011/02/unforgettable-simple-pleasures.html
Here is a tutorial showing how to paint a butterfly and create a card.
http://thereddoor-studio.blogspot.com/2011/05/artful-card-tutorial_18.html

Stamp by Martha Stewart
So to get started we each stamped birds and butterflies onto two types of muslin - bleached and natural.  We had two different sizes of the stamps show above.

Next we started painting the birds and branches with guache paints.

I chose to try to give my birds layers of feathers - just going over and over them until i got them right!

Z. stamped onto water colour paper and tried several soft ethereal techniques.

K. went for an assembly line approach - what a lovely array of colours.  It was all very 'zen' - the three of us painting all day.

Once the birds were painted i cut them out with my favorite tiny scissors.  Be careful if you do this - the muslin can easily fray.  Next time  i might coat the back with gel medium before cutting to give it extra strength.

Once i got the hang of painting the stamped birds i tried to do some freehand - the two hummingbirds above were copied from photos i found online.  Stamping just about anything on muslin looks really cool - try it!

Next i pulled together some vintage scraps and made cards on nice pre-folded water colour paper.  Emulating Traci Lyn's style - a bit of a letter, some ecru lace, a scrap of vintage wallpaper  - and a painted bird - make an adorable card!

 Here are the hummingbirds - the beaks fell off when gluing - so delicate (as wee hummingbirds can be) - but a dab of glue and a dab of paint and it is patched back together.

 I should have mentioned that the day was lovely in so many respects.  We began that morning with coffee, a delicious almond coffee cake that Z brought, plus an assortment of berries and my new favorite thing, non-fat Greek yogurt.  For lunch we had a crispy chicken Cobb salad with bacon and hardboiled eggs.  And for our afternoon tea we had these delicious individual chocolate cream surprise cakes that K. made.

Back at work i made this collage on a larger piece of paper and backed it with a dictionary page.  The birds nest was a stamp - but it came out badly - so i hand painted it as well.  I just frayed the edges of the muslin.

And finally all my cards together - with some finishing touches from K's box of goodies - some fibers and some bling to complete my cards.  What a fun relaxing day we had - thanks ladies for spending the day with me!