day by day, The virtue and Strife for a goal

It is hard for me to believe that July is already half over. My first Nature Gathered artwork is complete.

Now you would think this theme would have been an easy subject since I am constantly showing birds on my blog, and selling works in my little shop, as well as teaching Nature related workshops. But in reality, I have been ponder on this piece for over five weeks.

Why so difficult, you may ask?

Well...the word challenge according to Webster's Dictionary means,"to arouse or stimulate especially by presenting with difficulties".

This is the first piece in a body of work I will be presenting. It represents a part of Nature I hold dear. I also want to take full advantage of this opportunity to grow and stretch my art in new directions.

So where to begin?

I knew I wanted the piece to be saturated with rich colors. However, beyond that, I did not know where to go next.

After careful thought and consideration, I chose to dedicate the majority of the background to a study in pattern design or patterning. This is an area that had always fascinated me when I was working as a mass market retail product designer.

Although I consider myself a representational painter and have no intentions of abandoning this part of my style, I am increasingly finding myself drawn to more abstract elements. Bits of abstraction are also something I would like to incorporate into my future works.

As I was furiously creating, new ideas were flooding my thoughts. I have now found myself snipping inspiration from catalogs, magazine, here and there, tucking them away to use later.





Without further adieu, I proudly share my art with you.


The entire artwork was rendered on fabric with the exception of stitching and small paper elements. I spent a great deal of time mapping out the logistics of the background, painting and repainting, with wash after wash of diluted acrylics to achieve just the right look and depth.

I made only a few changes to the piece once I started. I suppose it could be considered part of the evolution of the work. One of the biggest was going from the use of three chickadees, down to one chickadee, then abandoning this bird type for the bluejay you see.

I also added a pattern to the bird to help him transition the two distinct areas of the painting, the grid patterning and the sky, making the viewer wonder if the bluejay is real, abstract, or both.

Art and image copyrighted 2008 by Tracie Huskamp