WIP {Echinacea and Bird Nest} & taking a bit of a break, maybe...

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Work in Progress {Echinacea and Bird Nest}
Still Life with Echinacea and Bird Nest
{24" x 18" (61 x 45.7 cm) – Oil on Linen}

Hello,

Here is the second still life I have been working on, it is of echinacea and a bird nest with a robin's egg. The echinacea are from my garden and they are the only flowers that are thriving in my neglected flower garden this year. With the pregnancy I have not been able to keep up with the weeds and mulching that is needed, so only hardy and established flowers are doing well this summer.

The bird nest was given to me last autumn by my loving husband, he found it in the yard when he was raking leaves. I had been gathering bird nests with the idea of eventually incorporating them into some more still lifes, I had really enjoyed working on this painting with a bird nest last summer. The robin's egg came from a nest we had been watching for a bit this spring that a rascally fox attacked one night, I know it was a fox because the nest was in the hedge right outside my window and the night before the nest was destroyed that darn fox was making a racket under my window sill! We left the egg untouched for a week to see if the robin would come back and reclaim it but alas it was abandoned by the bird.

This painting is being completed on very rough linen, the texture is almost that of burlap, so it has been fun playing with this texture and learning how to adapt to this different surface after working on such a smooth texture with the sunflowers.

And as of this blog post I am going to be taking a bit of break from blogging. The pregnancy is coming to an end and I think it would be nice to reserve the option of check out for a bit.

I may stop in and post some drawings or progress on this painting or others,
but then maybe not. So thank you for stopping by and visiting, I do so enjoy hearing from you.

I am looking forward to the start of the adventure of being a mother to a little girl and know it will contribute lots of inspiration to future artistic endeavors.

Have a wonderful afternoon.

Liz

contemplating motherhood, work in progressElizabeth Floydflowers