Friday, May 26, 2023

Friday Face Off

Hi everyone. Happy Friday. I can't believe another week has flown by so fast. Well, I can believe it because it seems to happen all the time, but it is still unbelievable  how fast time seems to go.

Here in the US we have a long weekend ahead. I'm hoping to finish my planting as I still need to get my veggies in the ground. 

Today I'm sharing some art for Nicole's Friday Face Off, Gillena's Friday Lunch Break  and also for Aimeslee's Flower challenge at Art Journal Journey. I have a face page that I drew a long time ago and figured it was time to finish it off.

 This page started off as a place to use up some extra paints, which is why you can see all the colored streaks and blobs. 


I used watercolored pencils to draw the face and bit of water to create the full head of hair from my pencil lines. The shoulders were drawn, and then I stamped and watercolor painted. I needed to do that to finish off this piece because otherwise the face was just floating. I painted the body with watercolors, and I also used a paint pen on the lips. 

I cut the flowers on her shoulder from a sheet of flower covered paper and overlapped them.

 The butterflies are actually from a magazine. They were printed with images that I didn't really like.  To fix that I  painted some of them black and then outlined  those with a white paint pen. I took 3 of those butterflies and glued them onto the same sheet of flowered paper that I used to cut the flowers in the shoulder cluster.   Once the glue dried I cut out the butterflies and put the flowered side up. I outlined those butterflies in black paint pen.


Finally I added the quote.

I also want to finish up my photos from Magnolia Gardens in Charleston, South Carolina.  In my  Wednesday post ( Wednesday post) I took you on the swamp walk, and today I want to wrap that up. Today we are visiting the end of the swamp known as the rookery, and it was very busy with lots of large nesting birds.

As I also mentioned on Wednesday, I didn't bring my camera with me as I didn't think I'd need my big lens. All photos were taken with my phone and sadly, could have been more spectacular with my camera. But they are what they are, and they're still not bad, unless you want to see the birds more close up. 😜



The trees in this part of the swamp were  loaded with egrets, herons and anhingas nesting. 





There is a bird in this next photo; it was a little blue heron. If you can't find it, just enjoy the abstract reflection.





This next photo is  a nest of baby great blue herons. David if you read this, do you have any idea how close to leaving the nest they would be? They look pretty large to me.


Mommy or Daddy was out getting lunch for those babies.


And we saw a couple more alligators too. Luckily they all stayed in the water.


More of those great blue heron babies.









 I hope you have a great start to your weekend. And as always-thanks for visiting my blog. 

24 comments:

Tom said...

...Erika, I think that you phone pictures are okey dokey! Stay gator safe!!!

Christine said...

Well done on the face. Enjoyed the photos today.

Angie's Recipes said...

Those phone photos are great. That place is the heaven for the animals.

Gene Black said...

Sometimes the pages to use up extra paint become better than the painting that the leftover paint came from.

Gillena Cox said...

Beautiful green shots. Your mixed media girl is interesting. Thanks for linking to AFFF

Much💖love

Caty said...

I really like this wonderful Art page Erika! It is very cheerful, and the butterflies are very beautiful.The photos you share of the park are impressive. I like those blue herons, they do look very big now, maybe they will leave the nest soon.
I hope you can also rest a bit this weekend, enjoy it and big hugs, Caty

carol l mckenna said...

Great swamp photos ~ Wow!

Wishing you good health, laughter and love in your days,
A ShutterBug Explores,
aka (A Creative Harbor)

Valerie-Jael said...

Love your flower face, and I am in love with those photos, wow! Have a great weekend, hugs, Valerie

CJ Kennedy said...

The swamp is amazing. The scenery is so different from what we have here. Spectacular weekend shaping up. Later, gator!

Jeanie said...

I LOVE seeing big birds in trees. Alligators? Not so much!

peppylady (Dora) said...

I real like your first art piece. I'm strongly considering doing something in same style.
We have bear sign, something like the alligator sign.
I also took place in Friday arts.

Coffee is on, and stay safe.

Beatrice P. Boyd said...

What an amazing place to have visited, Erika, and to see the young herons which did look so large but the. The adults are large birds! It would be interesting if David could help you with the answer to when they leave the nest. As long as the parents provide food, perhaps they stick around? And, I can understand why you would have wanted a longer lens to capture them.

Mae Travels said...

What a beautiful place! I enjoyed your photos.
best, mae at maefood.blogspot.com

Iris Flavia said...

I´m so with you with time running!
Sad, isn´t it.
We also have a long weekend. We might celebrate a wee bit as we became a couple 39 years ago!
Love the happy lady with butterflies (I hopefully will see this summer) and all the flowers (that hopefully will bloom on our balcony).

LOL on that sign! Did really someone try to feed an alligator?!
I saw a short doco where they said they are fast and if you run, run left, right, left etc to have a chance at all! I will not try that, though (we once saw a freshy in Australia and jumped in the car).
Hugs and to a great weekend - we have coal, sausages, halloumi, salad and hopefully warm weather!

David M. Gascoigne, said...

Looks like they are just about ready to leave the nest, Erika. Now they have to learn to catch their own food and that's the difficult part! I wish them luck. Hugs - David

Jeanie said...

This is a woman who looks like she's up to no good! I've felt that way more times than I care to admit.

Feeding alligators? No thank you. I don't even like being in the same state with them!

DVArtist said...

Wow! This face looks like I felt all week. A bit crazy. I love her!!!! All of the photos are fabulous but my face is the 3rd one. Just beautiful. Thank you for joining FFO and have a very nice weekend.

*Vicki* said...

This is brilliant! Faces are so intimidating for me! Having butterflies in my hair would be wonderful too! LOL I love this page!

Divers and Sundry said...

Those nests in the wetlands are a real treat to see. I hope the next generation returns to this place to raise their own.

Bleubeard and Elizabeth said...

What a great way to get several challenges in at one time. I like the face and how you used a mop up page. But I really like the flowers you added for her top, This was fabulous,

That green algae is beautiful to photograph, but it is invasive and several ponds in my neighborhood have taken drastic measures to get rid of it. I enjoyed the egrets and was fascinated by how the blue heron build their nests. Loved the alligator shots too.

Fundy Blue said...

I really enjoy the collage you made, Erika. I like how you pulled it all together with the clever use of the flowered paper. I have used my iPhone a lot to take pictures, especially because it usually pinpoints the exact geographic location. But I've been frustrated by the photos it takes when I use the zoom feature. So now I roam around with my phone and my little point-and-shoot camera. I enjoyed seeing your birds and the alligator.

Elkes Lebensglück said...

A great, original page! Looks so beautiful with the face.
What great photos, I love this other world with you!
Hug Elke

Aimeslee Winans said...

Fab freehand drawing and collaging, love your page and thanks for linking it up. XOX

Andrea @ From The Sol said...

That is quite the face ... many colors and she looks excited to have butterflies and flowers in her picture. I love the rookery pictures and your phone camera did quite well, don't you think? We have a rookery on the Fox river very close to where I live and when I still lived on the lake there was a huge rookery on the next lake in the Chain of lakes. Both egrets and herons and of course the cormorants were always around. These were great pictures and glad you got to see the birds ... nature is so rewarding. Have a wonderful long weekend, Erika :)

Andrea @ From the Sol