Art Elements March Theme - Spring

One of our photos we took of the poppies a few
years ago.

This months Art Elements Theme is Spring. I have linked to the photo album on the Art Elements Community Facebook Group.

Mom and I actually have two pieces for this month's theme - birds on a branch with seedpods and leaves and a birdhouse. The birdhouse is an image mom found on Pinterest. I also found other images that we could use at later date and those can be found on my Pinterest. I have a board called Art Elements Theme ideas.

The idea for the bird plate was actually based off a painting by our favorite watercolor artist Rena Brouwer. I did a quick sketch and gave it to mom. Mom then found a pattern and she actually sawed out this piece over a year ago. We just hadn't filed, sanded or enameled it.

So, mom finished the filing and sanding and then handed it off to me to enamel.

The enameling process: I enamel the back first. I use clear as the base layer (of all of our pieces) and then I start adding the colors to the piece. I like doing the back first so I have an idea of what the front will look like. I can also change my mind about the colors. I do ask mom's opinion about the piece before I start enameling the front.

So, here is the final piece of the bird plate. Mom will assemble this piece in a shadowbox at a later time.

The second piece we did was a birdhouse that mom found. I told mom I wanted to create another 3-d effect piece. So, she figured out how to do it. The nest/eggs are a separate piece that we enameled to the birdhouse.

Here is the process:

Mom glued the pattern down to 20g copper.

I then sawed out the perimeter of the piece. Mom hates sawing out the perimeter, but that is something I don't mind sawing out. I hate sawing out the designs.

If you want to see a video of mom sawing out one of the designs you can head over to our FB page and check out here sawing skills.

Mom took a video of the finished filed/sanded birdhouse. I am so proud of her, that she took a video on her own without me nagging her.

I really didn't take a photo of the enameling process of the birdhouse. I do have a quick video of the powdered enamels on the piece before going into the kiln. I have it posted on TikTok account @ebbeadandmetalworks. I just started the account and I have no idea what I am doing. I also posted a TikTok video of the finished piece too.

Here are the final photos of the birdhouse:

I will be posting the photos to the Art Elements Community album for this month's theme. You can go here to see what everyone posted.