December kit of the month- large whimsical birds By Julia Baker

These amazing characters were fun to make there is so much you can do with them.

I started by painting the bases and bird parts with white gesso.  When dry I put bird parts to one side and concentrated on the backgrounds. 

Paint will silver acrylic paint, mine needed two coats.

Using old book pages I used lilac, lime and turquoise drops of ink then spritzed with water, blot with kitchen paper leave to dry.

I randomly added blobs of PVA glue over the background and whilst the glue was still wet applied pieces of inked book pages. Leave to dry, overnight if possible.

When dry tear away excess paper. 

Add texture paste around each side and drop in a few beads while wet. Put aside to dry.

Going back to the birds paint with lilac, turquoise and lime acrylic paint and when dry start to add interest with paint and texture paste. Edge each piece with ink, I used ‘warm breeze’ versafine Clair.

Back to the backgrounds I used glossy crackle paste through Tando stencils, then used acrylic paint round borders.

Finish bird pieces with dot and star stamps. Assemble birds however you fancy anything goes here have fun! Glue birds together with PVA then glue to backgrounds. 

To finish birds I used a piece of flower trim and beads along each bird. Added black beads for eyes then used a white Posca pen to add dots and highlights and a couple of feathers.

Enjoy and have fun!