The East Wind New Release ~ Northern Red Shafted Flicker

Hi everyone. Tuesdays and Fridays are the days for new releases at The East Wind. As soon as I saw this sweet image, I knew that I had to colour her. Her name is  Northern Red Shafted Flicker and she is a nod to this beautiful bird (see below) which comes to Unky's feeder sometimes. I love how her clothing mimics the markings of this lovely bird and her face is simply adorable.

I coloured Aurora with a mix of Prismacolor and Polychromos pencils after finding an online photo of the actual bird to use as a reference. I thought it would be fun to get as close as possible to the bird's colours in my colouring. She was then fussy cut leaving a narrow white border, matted with black, and popped up on foam tape.

The 6 x 8 inch mixed media paper background was spritzed with Cocklebells Coral and Autumn Maple Crimson  Starburst Sprays both directly on the paper and through a mesh stencil. White space was left in several areas. Black Dylusions paint was sponged through TCW's Punchinella stencil to create more pattern. Torn vintage book paper was adhered in several places. A Stampotique double heart stamp was also applied using Brilliance Rocket Red-Gold Archival ink. The tree branch where Aurora would stand was hand drawn and cut, then shaded with Prismacolor pencils and Big Brush pens. Walnut Stain Distress ink was used to darken the edges. A heart was die cut three times from text paper scraps, coloured with the same Rocket Red gold ink, and stacked using foam tape between the layers.

The nest comes from a collage sheet by great musings. It was fussy cut, shaded and doodled with coloured pencil, and edged with Distress ink. Once adhered to the tree branch, three tiny plastic eggs were adhered with Glossy Accents. The computer generated sentiment by Winnie the Pooh was printed on white cardstock, trimmed out, and matted with black. Foam tape popped up each section. To complete the piece, black splatter dots were added with Jet Black Archival ink. The edges were darkened with Black Big Brush pen before the background was matted with black cardstock to frame it.

Thanks for joining sweet Aurora and me today. We are happy to have your wonderful company. To see what other DT members did with this wonderful new release, be sure to pop by The East Wind Facebook page where they will be posted throughout the day.

Life is good; so is art.
Bonnie