this is the card i *THOUGHT* i was making yesterday

there's always a convoluted story, right? my friend kim ♥LOVES♥ peacocks, and i try to work one into her birthday card or gift most years. when i saw the current fusion challenge, i immediately thought how well the colors and vibe of the inspiration picture would work. i also thought that i'd like to try to draw or paint something original for kim's card, so that it would be more personal. i wasn't sure i was up to painting an actual peacock, but i saw some very cool peacock-themed art on pinterest* and i thought i might be up to creating a stylized peacock feather to use as an accent to the woodgrain pattern and flowers of the inspiration picture. a couple of hours later i was still drawing swooshes and doodles and realized that i just wanted to make the whole panel into its own card. so i did! :)

peacock feather illustration painted with artist's loft watercolor paints on strathmore watercolor paper; outlines and doodles made with faber-castell pitt pens (medium, superfine and extra-superfine points) and accented with black machine stitching and some "blackbird" chalk ink by colorbox around the edges; yellow patterned paper by maggie holmes for crate paper; blue rhinestone from martha stewart crafts

it took a while to choose the patterned paper mats for this, not-- as i sort of half expected-- because nothing looked good; au contraire, i was spoiled for choice! blues looked good, greens looked good, black and white worked really well, etc. finally i settled on this subtle yellow flower pattern, and i think it makes the detail at the top of the feather really pop. i did quite a bit of machine stitching on this, but sadly it doesn't show up in the photo; it's lovely and textural in real life, though!

i'm entering this in the simon says stamp wednesday challenge: use watercolors, although i almost feel like i should warn you NOT to click that link unless you have about an hour to marvel over all of the incredible DT and readers' gallery projects... seriously AMAZING work going on over there... yowza!

*being fairly new to drawing my own images, i find that it really helps me to see what other people have done. is that weird? i don't want to copy anyone's work, but just seeing how different artists conceptualize an idea, the different techniques and colors they've used, usually gives me an approachable place to start. in this case, i specifically liked the minimalism of this this peacock ogee pattern; the inset heart and swoopy swirls of this peacock illustration; and the doodley close-up aspect of this peacock feather. my finished painting looks nothing like any of them, really, but they were all very inspirational! ♥