Blue Bird and Ivy Plant

6 X 6

Oil on Panel

I haven't posted for awhile so I thought an update was in order.

First off, I have painted this little blue bird before.  I just love how chubby he is.

 It still amazes me that when you actually check the colors of shadows, they are rarely as dark as you think they are.

Mother's Day at my house was awesome!  My middle son who lives in St Louis drove up for the day bringing along his bride-to-be and her three boys.  So I was blessed to see all of my kids and grandkids on the same day.  Yea!  The perfect Mother's Day gift.  Of course Tank loved all of the extra attention!

I have been busy getting ready for two summer shows coming up.  One thing I wanted to do was make nice labels for my paintings.  I was wanting ones like the ones I see in the museums.  After much trial and error ( and four types of glue) here is what I came up with.

It is printed vellum, using a large shipping label template, glued to a mat board square.  I still may build up the name tag by gluing on one or maybe two layers of foam core board.  I like the idea of them being more 3 dimensional.  I finally had to go with a spray glue called Loctite to get the vellum to stick to the mat board.  Worked great.  Cutting the mat boards was harder than I thought it would though.  I finally took them down to the shop and cut them with my table saw.  Worked great!!  I will stick them to my "walls" with clear mounting squares by Scotch.

Speaking of the table saw, I was running low on panels so I thought I would skip one step in my panel making process by tinting the primer with a "cardboard" colored tint.   The tinting worked fine, but I used a different brand of primer and I am not happy with the outcome.  The panels are dry and suck the oils immediately out of the paints.  I will have to "oil in" before I start each new painting.  Live and learn!

I broke down and bought some Rosemary brushes.  I have heard so many great comments about them.  Actually, they didn't work that great for me.  I think I will save the money and continue to buy the Monarch brand that I have bought in the past.  To each her own I guess!

Hope everyone is doing well, and able to spend some time doing what you love to do.

Karla