the courage to try

Last spring, I took a student in the studio on a hike during her class time and together we sketched on some of the trails around the house.  While we were on the trail, we stumbled across a mass of feathers from what must of been a hunt where the bird was on the losing side of the battle.  Thankfully there was no blood, just feathers, so I collected some to bring back to the studio.

Over the past months, they have been used as reference for scratch art and sketching but last night one actually became a canvas for a painting.

I took a picture of the student working on the feather just so you could appreciate how small the surface was the artist used for painting.

To be truthful, I wasn't quite sure how to go about painting on a feather.  Years ago I had brought back some paintings from China on a feather and a leaf and I brought those down for the student to study before starting.  She chose to do a leopard resting in a tree for her subject matter.

What was discovered is that if you build up the acrylic paint slowly, it holds quite well on the feather.

I'm thinking I'll give her a quill pen next week to add any fine black lines she might want, but in the end she got a great result.

At one point she asked if she could just do shapes because she didn't think she could get the picture she wanted, but I told her to not change focus and keep moving forward with her original vision and when it started to come together, I knew.  There was a loud, YES! as it began to work.

I have mounted the final work on bristol board.  Unfortunately it is so small my camera is having a very difficult time focusing on it and this is the best I could do for a final picture.

Needless to say, in person, the work is quite wonderful.

I'm so impressed that this student had the courage to try a path that not one person in the studio really knew what would happen in the end.  I'm so very proud of her.

12 year old, acrylic on feather