Animal Quilt - Kakapo

The next animal I'm working on is the Kakapo. This endangered little parrot is just too cute and I thought that since he doesn't have a great deal of detail that he would be another good one to start painting. I forgot to take a picture of the line drawing first but believe me you didn't miss anything. It just looked like a fat weird bowling pin shape with eyes and a beak.

This bird is full of greens and yellow. I started with the brightest green color and roughly laying it in avoiding the bright yellow chest and head. Then I added the yellow areas and blending that into the green. Next, I layered some dark green and a greenish brown color to shade some of the beak area. I let this dry for several hours.

Next, I added background colors. This little parrot likes to walk on the forest floor so the background is an abstract of greens and browns. After a while, I thought some leaf shapes would look good peaking in from the sides and so I added those. In the second picture, it looks like I lost a lot of the shapes and so when the second layer dried, I went back in and added more leaves.

I'm thinking of painting some leaves separately and then appliquéing them to the area in front of the bird for a more 3 dimensional look. It's just an idea I'm kicking about but it has potential.

Next, I filled in some facial details really making the face pop. The little cheeks looked like it had some peach in it but I couldn't get the inks to work well. So I mixed red in with some white and a lot of yellow and more white just to get that hint of color.

With some additional white highlights, here's the finished Kakapo. This one came together fairly easily. Hopefully the rest will be too!

Comments

Jacobean Journey Quilt - Trunk Show

On Saturday, January 17, I went to my local quilt shop, Quilt Beginnings, and everyone who made either a Jacobean Journey or Feathered Star quilt last year brought in their projects. Some were finished, close to being finished or still in pieces. Below is my quilt. Its brown, cream, peach and a melon like color. The blocks have been really fun to do and putting all the blocks together have definitely challenged me and some of the other ladies I spoke with. The next two pictures, are of a mother and daughter and their quilts. They have a similar theme with black, gray, red, white and dark gold color. When asked if they were going to attempt to do the next Hoopsister's embroidery quilt "Sewn Seeds," which there's a sneak peak of at the end, they both said, "Nooooooooooo." Also, these guys say they're novice sewers but I think they've graduated! This lovely lady, did her Jacobean Journey quilt in red, pink, white and a very light blue...

Jacobean Journey Quilt - Outer Border

I've been working on the outer border for a while now and I'm about 75% done. Out of 44 blocks I've got around 32 done so I'm getting there. I decided not to do a video of these blocks just photos. There's a lot of fabric placement and thread changes and trying to operate a camera at the same time is just begging for something bad to happen. So I decided not to risk it. Here's the border block and corners. They are the smallest blocks I've done for this quilt. The borders are 4.5'x6" and roughly 12K stitches and the corners are 4.5" square with around 9K stitches. Outer Border Corner The outer borders require some accurate piecing first. The first piece for the corner is strips of fabrics 1 and 4. The second strip is made from fabrics 3, 1 and 4. In the top photo of the square, strip 1 is the white, brown, white and strip 2 is pink, white and brown. To make the square, stitch out your placement area. Then place strip 1, right si...

Jacobean Journey Quilt - Inner Border

Its been several months since we started the quilt as a BOM but since I'm adding on both inner and outer borders, I figure I better get started making those blocks. The inner border comprises 2 blocks. I need 36 of one (straights) and 4 of the other (corners) so I'm going to try to do roughly 10 per month or so. I'll discuss the inner border corner block in another post. Inner Border Block This block I call the "straights." Both of these blocks are different from the rest so far. For these two blocks you have to piece fabric together BEFORE you begin the block. The inner block has a diamond pattern in it and you're going to sew 3 strips of fabric together (fabrics 3, 2 and 4) and then line up the seams onto the stitch pattern. I have found this to be the most difficult step. Its not really difficult but you have to be very accurate. You sew the fabric strips together with 1/4" seam and if they're off your seams will not match up, your ...

Sweet River Studios

Search This Blog