Riffin' on: 29 Black Street

In an effort to avoid my actual work, I took an afternoon off to play. I decided it would be fun to do a series of paintings riffing on the work of other artists. Fittingly, I chose to start with a piece inspired by Susan Black of 29 Black Street, because she had taken a class where I believe this was one of the assignments: riffing. Here are the pieces I used for my reference:

I composed my 4 bird painting by dissecting Susan's Dandelion piece; I drew the birds and then began to layer paint in each birds' background, then adding the linear details and finally, the collage elements. I liked her warm palette with black punctuation. Instead of watercolor, I used an opaque acrylic gouache and I added a bit of sea green to the palette - just enough to show through the warm layers.

I had this old frame and mat laying around and made the bird painting to fit it. The image size is 7 x 11. After it was framed, I determined that red dots were desperately needed to bring this tepid frame into the land of the living. Now we have a modern folk art vibe! I gave the piece to the Blue Ridge Mountain Arts Center to auction off at their Spooks and Spirits benefit tomorrow night, but I really wanted to keep it! Thanks, Susan! xo