I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

I decided to make a small art piece to hang in my sewing room this week.  I was inspired by the Bird stencil designed by Jill Berry and one of Maya Angelou poems, "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings". You can read the whole poem here. I started with a small piece of watercolor paper and a wood cutout of a bird in a cage.  I painted the cage with silver paint and the watercolor paper with Twinkling H2O's. After the watercolors were dry I scraped glossy gel medium through the bird stencil so that the pattern would show up on the background.  Make sure that you wash off the gel medium right away, so your stencil doesn't get ruined. The stenciling shows up much better when the photo is taken at an angle. I painted over the bird and the perch with metamica paints in moonlight and willow blue. I glued the wood piece to the watercolor paper with more gel medium and weighed it down while it dried to ensure good contact. After it was dry I wrote the parts of the poem down that I wanted to use onto tissue paper. I glued them to the page with fluid medium and let it dry.  I also punched holes into the top of the paper and tied on a ribbon for hanging.  The last step was to go over the words again with a Pitt pen so that they showed up better. The twinks and the glossy gel medium shimmer in the light. I hope that I have inspired you to go and make some art to beautify your creative spaces. Janelle