The Caged Bird Sings of Freedom

Usually I don't feel confident painting faces. But when I watched Christa Forrest's session of the Kaleidoscope 2022 Taster Week, I was so inspired to try my own take of her painting.

Like her, I used Maya Angelou's poem "Caged Bird" as my inspiration and also used her reference image to trace the face. I wrote parts of the poem with black charcoal and then covered it with white gesso and some water. I added washi tape and papers to make some collaged background. Then I stencilled with white paint over it. That was the easy part.

After I had traced the face I started to fill in the face. Christa's idea was to just use black and white and mix midtones with it. For me, it was quite a challenge to stay within these colors, but it taught me about their values. It was interesting and a great learning experience. I had seen her applying the color for the hair with a sponge, so I tried that, too. The outcome in my painting isn't quite as stunning as in hers, but I like the technique and love the texture of it.

As you can see, I didn't stay within the limits of black, white and the midtones. I had to bring in some mute color in her "clothes", the stars, flowers and bird. The final collaging of the birds and the white cosmos was fun. The flowers are out of a gardening catalogue and the birds come from an old bird calendar. Finally I added some words from the poem.

This is the first time I'm joining Nicole's Friday Face Off.