Chicken Ranch

15x22 watercolor collage on 140 lb Arches paper; chickens are collage cut from one failed painting on top of really bad old wooden shack painting to make a new scene. It is meant to be a humorous piece from two 'dogs'.  Moral of the story: Never throw away a bad painting. You can always recycle it or paint on the back side.
COPYRIGHT Kay Smith 2018

Retro Rooster

10 x 14.75 mixed media (watercolor, acrylics, newspaper, napkins, catalog pages, ink) I composed over a failed geranium watercolor. The rooster head and neck were from a former failed barnyard painting with him and two hens that did not quite work. His purple legs just kill me; feathers in front are from newspaper photos of old wood.  It is a conglomeration of elements with a whole lot of country style and was fun to make.
COPYRIGHT Kay Smith 2018

December Chickens ~ 30 in 30 Challenge day 2

5.5x8 watercolor and ink (Uniball Vision Elite pen) and colored pencils on Strathmore Visual Journal for mixed media begun on new year's eve, hence the title.  I finished it yesterday in time to join in another of Leslie Saeta's 30 paintings in 30 days challenge for January.  Photo courtesy Kordelia/WetCanvas where also I posted it for the current weekend drawing event.  I had cropped the chickens in the reference to focus more on the white hen.
Image COPYRIGHT 2016/2017 Kay Smith.

Penguin Pair

7x5 watercolor on 140 lb cold press paper, an imaginary penguin pair out frolicking in the snow storm on a very cold night.
Image COPYRIGHT Kay Smith 2016.

Birdhouse Row

5.5x8.5 watercolor and ink line on Master's Touch sketchbook paper painted today after sketching yesterday.  This imaginary scene reminds me of a little nature neighborhood surrounded by plants, flowers, pots with its residents busy doing bird things all day.
Image is COPYRIGHT 2014 Kay Smith.

Doves

6x6 watercolor and ink line wash on Masters paper drawn early yesterday morning and painted quickly in the afternoon of a pair of mourning doves huddled together to stay warm.  This is more work done in neutral tones such as the palm fan leaves in sepia a few days ago.  Sepia, Coastal Fog, and a bit of indigo blue was used with this composition.
Image is COPYRIGHT 2014 Kay Smith.

Crows and Cardinal in Snow

11x15 watercolor commission of a murder of crows and one lone male cardinal.  This work is SOLD.

Chilly Chaps (Penguins)

8x5.5 watercolor on Canson 140 lb cold press paper with Daniel Smith/AJ paints, drawn today. I used several cool colored crayons including white to outline trees behind the penguins, then laid in loose spontaneous washes of ultramarine, manganese, midnight blues. Carbazole violet was used also.  No masking applied; just went around snowy white areas leaving as the white of the paper. Black was mixed with alizarin crimson and thalo green for this pair of chilly chaps.

Longnecks: Flamingos in Love

12x9 watercolor of two romantic flamingos whose heads and necks actually form a heart shape when they move closer together.

Pen Gwen

30 x 22 acrylic on watercolor paper 140 lb cold press, wax crayon resist.  The title is a pun, a play on words, for penguin, so here she is in her red sunglasses taking a stroll along a snowy path.

Barnyard Boss

15x11 watercolor on rice paper using wax resist of two fowl birds, a rooster and a hen, that were drawn from life.

Detail - Hummer WIP watercolor

This detail is about 4x6 of another hummingbird in upper left of the new nature garden painting. Part of pansy leaves lower right you can see aren't yet painted. It is so dry here that my paper kept evaporating its water at a faster rate than my brush could keep up layering background areas. Don't forget to stay tuned and check back later on this work in progress.

Fowl Language - Finished Work

Three fine fowl engage in their own language here on the farm, clucking or crowing, they await their next meal. The rooster is on the lookout for any trouble and protecting his hen harem.

Fowl Language - Contour Line Drawing

13.5 x 21.5 with Pigma Micron 01 pen on partially gessoed matboard, rooster and hens courtesy of Sharron/WetCanvas! This was drawn in 10 minutes and the painting can't be more than 2 hours...

Penguin in Pearls collage

This is the other challenge finished in which you had to do your previous one in collage using paper cut-outs. I chose to use Veranda magazine ads torn from old mags and made to fit. I placed them on with Yes! paste and matte medium onto Crescent matboard.
Size is 13.25 x 10 inches.
Now this afternoon was total fun making him debonair and dapper in his tux and pearls

Dapper Flapper

This oh-so dapper fellow is about to jump from his cold rocky cliff ledge into the icy water below. Done today this 11x12 watercolor was first drawn with black pigma micron pen then washes applied, darks first. Part of a weekend drawing event on WetCanvas.com, he was drawn in 10 minutes and painted in 1/2 hour; photo courtesy Michelle. We have a 2 hour time limit to draw and paint an image out of 16 posted photos with a challenge added by the host. Michelle's challenge was to do a watercolor/pen wash or cut out paper depicting your subject. Stay tuned for my penguin made out of Veranda magazine pages. Hint: He's wearing pearls!

Hippy Chicks

22x30 watermedia (acrylic, watercolor, latex acrylic) on Italia 140 lb cold press paper. These two hip chicks are doing the funky chicken dance. Background design is taken from butterfly wing sections for added pattern and whimsical interest.

Mad as a Wet Hen

15x22 watercolor on 140 lb cold press paper, painted quickly then partially outlined using black India ink. I splattered paint when dry. Painting barnyard creatures, especially chickens, is too much fun. Growing up on a farm, one of my chores was to gather and wash eggs in Pine Sol. To this day I hate the smell of that disinfectant.

New Watercolor Collages

Jailbird

Copyright Kay Smith 2009

Cat Tales and Fish Stories

Yesterday and today was fun day in the studio for me to relax after the holiday hubbub and hoopla. I'd already prepared two 11x14 approx sizes of matboard, one had been brushed with black gesso (cat above) and the other white gesso along with torn tissue toilet paper covers. This cat here I placed cut out plastic shapes into another coat of white gesso over the black gesso, let dry, then applied paint where I saw shapes. Christmas miracle! There appeared a cat and fish!

With Jailbird, I collaged a man's eyes photo detail I'd torn out of a newspaper, then the bottom half of his face appears on the left side. Portions of an article about a suave and shrewd swindler are scattered about including info about the police. Just last week had been reading about Mr. Madoff and how he got caught in his Ponzi scheme. With multicolored pencils I wrote words across such as ruthless, mean, schemer, etc. Also I stamped words and postmarks with black gesso. Using colored pencils, watercolor, Caran D'Ache crayons, I put colors down then removed until a design emerged of birds, then jail bars, almost by magic. Green areas were added to symbolize green grass Mr. Madoff won't be seeing as well as hear birds singing.

Chickadee Migration

15x30 watercolor on Fabriano hot press paper that was coated with heavy gel medium. Three 6" squares were blocked off and covered. After stamping into the gel, I let it dry, then drew shapes and wrote words 'chickadee migration', covered all with blue and gold watercolor, then wiped off all paint. Next I carved out tree branches and limbs. Into the middle square I painted a bird's nest with eggs and let the painting tell me what it needed. A black crow appeared in the left square and far right a speckled leaf that uses repetition along with the eggs.