Paula,
Love your blue bird, would love to see the front view with the face + beak. What did you use for the coloration? janet R.

Paula,
I'm sorry I just scrolled down the comments and saw the front view of Blue Bird. Exquisite!!! How big is it?
janet R.

It's about 5" long. The coloring is permanent metallic marker then poly over top....funny huh..
Paula

I used 18g sheet metal. I started with the belly using some repousse/chasing tools to form it into a semi cup shape. I then cut the feathers individually, (the longer ones) and used chisel/repousse tools again to 'mark' them. Then filed them into a nicer feather shape. Then cut out the shoulder piece and tooled that. The head was the same process in two parts. the top of the head and the neck area. After all the parts were made i welded the pieces from the inside, starting with the body.

Does any of this make sense????
Hopefully you're getting the idea....
It was fun. Probably took much longer than I should have... but what do you do? I learned a lot from it... Guess that's the main thing, right?
Paula

Paula, very sweet really a cutie. Love the color and the texture. The branches and needles also look good.
warren

I love the bird and would like to try something similar. One tiny comment would be a bird at rest doesn't spread the feathers or overlap them. All the other details look great and would like to see more.
Thanks for the post.
Don

That's the kind of thing I'm looking for here... THANKS... Ya, i agree, need to work on that...Hopefully the next one will be more realistic.

Paula

That is a great bird. When I see something like the feathers crossed or something like that, it just gives me a sense of movement. A bird totally at rest may not have his feathers crossed, but when are they totally at rest? Only at night when you can't see them anyway. I saw this and noted the feathers and immediately thought, WOW, that bird looks like he was taking a bath and just stopped shaking himself off. Just ready to start preening.

Lovely work and very nice.

Rick Crawford at Smoky Forge

Really! Thanks... It's encouragement just when I needed it!.... There are days when I wonder if I'm in the right business; probably more days than not. But it's comments like yours that say, 'Yah, keep working at it'... Thanks.

I've recently posted the branch that the bird was sitting on. We, Hubby Larry and I, just delivered and installed it for our client. She was happy with it as well..

Paula