Put a Bird on It

What a great Easter weekend here in the Northwest!  All this sun makes me want to paint something with a bird on it.  

I was at a 12 hour craft retreat on Saturday and even though I should have napped kid-free the entire time....I crafted, went on a quick shopping trip, sewed the bodice to a dress, and did my taxes.  It's insane what you can get done without a couple children begging you to put the glue gun down.

First I started with a 16" x 20" blank canvas.  Here is the pack of 2 I bought and had shipped directly to my house (thank you Amazon!)

Then I painted the entire canvas with a mustard yellow acrylic.  I put down 3 coats, waiting until each previous layer of paint was dry (if you don't, when you paint over the wet spots the paint stroke will remove the wet paint).
This is after only 1 coat.

Now to start the fun part.  I found these awesome Martha Stewart stencils.

 First I carefully cut out the portion of the stencil I wanted to use.  I took a blob of white acrylic paint and added my mustard until I liked the color.  Then I took a stencil sponge and just dabbed a little paint onto it (if you add too much it will smear the detail of the stencil).  I did not tape the stencil down since I would be constantly moving it along the canvas.

I placed the stencil in the upper left hand corner and held with my non-stencil dabbing hand.  Next I gently tapped the sponge vertically into all the design holes, reloading the sponge when needed.  After all the holes were painted I carefully pulled the stencil away from the canvas.  Then I just moved the stencil down to the next location.  For the second row I started in the center and centered my stencil with 2 from the first line. I continued from there trying to just eyeball the placement.

It sure was pretty, but I felt it needed more.  Since I was in the spring mood I felt a bird on a branch should be added.

First I just free handed with light pencil strokes a branch outline.  Then I went over those lines with a cobblestone gray acrylic paint, increasing the thickness of the branch at the right side of the canvas.  I only needed 2 coats of this paint.  Don't stress, these are branches, even in nature they're not perfect.

Now to put the bird on it.  Since I was at a retreat I had access to a Cricut. I used the bird from this cartridge and increased the size to 6". 

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If you don't have a Cricut you could just Google Image search for a bird silhouette.  Print out the image you like to a large scale.  Cut out the bird and trace with a pencil where you want it to sit.  Then fill in the image with a nice contrasting color.  

 I just used Elmer's glue on the back of the heavy cardstock and glued it on one of the branches.