This is Milagros, the most recent piece in my bird series. It's also a fairly new process for me that started in the early spring when I decided to do a number of giclees of paintings I no longer owned and wanted to rework. I had them printed larger than the original and reversed the image if I felt the new owner would object to me reproducing it. Some of the prints came out great and required very little to enhance them. Others needed a complete overhaul because of issues with the jpeg I'd sent to the printer. As I went along changing backgrounds and eye shapes and adding more detail to the feathers and such, I used a blend of colored pencils and acrylic paint, both as glazes over the pencil marks and as the dominant medium. Not as intricate as my actual paintings on wood panels, these mixed media pieces have become my primary process for the time being. And since I had duplicates made when I ordered some of the giclees, it has given me the freedom to experiment. For example, the print that Milagros grew out of was originally a crow. Only the back of the head is the same. If you look closely, you see the complicated chest feathers that got covered up with layers of colored pencil and acrylic washes as it transformed into this new parrot.
I will be posting more of these mixed media pieces, but here is another from the crow prints which got reworked earlier in the series. Titled Raven Redux, its silvery feathers were not so pronounced and copper background used to be a deep burgundy.
