Then and Now Post: My birds

 

My bird journey started twelve years ago. I love birds, particularly the passerines. So delicate yet the survive the perils of winter and drought, hot summers and full nests. I really admire the pluck!
As I sit in my workshop I watch the birds on and off all day. We back onto woods so we get so many different species from Nuthatches to Woodpeckers.
So I wanted to make a bird doll and this little carousel shows how they progressed. From the first bird(second photograph), she was huge and stencilled with acrylic then stitched. They all sold but were too big and clumsy. They it abandoned the paint and started to delineate in stitch (third photograph), my first blue tit received so much publicity but birds are delicate little guys not big clumsy dolls.
So I reduced the size considerably, so that they just sit in your hand. Still heavily embroidered just smaller (fourth photograph). This is how I made them for several years, they were smaller and neater but I do not like their clumsy booted feet. Bird feet and tiny spiky and bird legs are slim. So tomorrow I will share the next iteration. New even smaller patterns with very different feet, works in progress.