"The Boy and the Blackbird" piece was perhaps the most challenging that I have worked on so far this year.
And I'm not convinced that I'm even finished.
I painted the watercolor of the boy and the bird, taking an entire weekend to detail the boy and his shirt. Throwing caution to the wind, I wildly decided to use real denim for the cutoff shorts (still waiting for my husband to notice he's missing that old pair of torn jeans) and real feathers for the blackbird. Stitching both denim and feathers to watercolor paper was a challenge made even bigger when I decided to tear the edges of the watercolor painting from its background.
Initially, I began to paint a muted landscape in acrylic on canvas as the background for the watercolor to be sewn to (see below.) But I quickly realized I wanted to try a uniquely different background. I repositioned the piece horizontally, and basically quilted hand-dyed batik fabric to the canvas.Then I stitched the boy and the bird watercolor paper to it.
But I'm really not done. I want to create this art again, inspired by the song "Blackbird" by John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
"Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly.
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise."
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"Is the boy is accompanying the blackbird or is the blackbird accompanying the boy? No matter. Either way, it's a love song."
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Watercolor
The original sketch became a watercolor executed on BFK Rives paper. I drew the boy and the bird in black archival ink, adding detail with watercolor pencils, watercolor paint and Dr. P.H. Martin's inks.
Detail
Here you can see where the denim was sewn to the watercolor paper to form the boy's shorts. I painted the shirt to work with the realism of the shorts.
The blackbird was painted first, then black feathers were sewn to create true birdliness in its appearance.
I tore the painted watercolor image from its paper background, giving it that rough-edged nuance I love.
Preliminary background
The first background I began to paint on canvas was of muted rolling hills and blue sky. As you can see, the boy and the bird are sketched onto the canvas for positioning reference.
But after much re-imagining, I changed my approach because I wanted to create an unexpected background.
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Quilt-like background
I decided to use my hand-dyed batik fabric with cotton batting for loft, stitching it to the canvas. On this quilt-like background, I sewed the boy and the bird watercolor paper.
I then painted more watercolor paper with bright acrylic paints for the sunset and tore those to create the rough edges.
I sewed those to the background using matching silk thread. (See above.)