There's a traditional children's song with haunting lyrics: Little bird, little bird, fly through my window as sung by Elizabeth Mitchell. That song is the inspiration for this valentine. The lyrics will go on the inside. I was originally going to cut out a window so that you saw the bird through the window, but I think that would work better with a collage bird and curtains, I'm not really a watercolorist by any measure. Still, this painted bird was inspired by another painted bird in a book called Birds by Kevin Henkes and illustrated by Laura Dronzek. A dose of gratitude to all the artists living and dead whose work inspires and leads to (we hope) some further insight.

These curtains are pretty flat, I haven't studied the effects of light on draped fabric enough.

Ganesh Valentine

I left the front pretty much as is (see previous post). This is the inside of the Ganesh valentine, along with a detail. My self imposed Sunday deadline means I have to finish and post the valentine on Monday, and that's a good thing because although there's more I could do here, I think it's more important right now to move through ideas quickly. I've already got an idea for this weeks valentine, it uses song lyrics from a children's song called "Little Bird." Stay tuned!

Progress Photo- Ganesha

A tripod is a handy gadget indeed, that and a husband who knows his way around a camera and lighting. I'm not sure where I'm going with this concept, but I've been thinking about the elephant god lately and wanted to learn more about him. He's supposed to be the remover of obstacles.

Meanwhile, I've been reading about paper marbling, ebru, suminagashi, and other like techniques. I can't find any workshops in the area so I'll have to figure it out from a book. I did find some interesting youtube clips. Check this out:

Ebru- Tree @ Kendi Kiosk.