feather mandala

I found some downy feathers in the backyard a while back, put them on a yellow paper.  I liked the star that formed in the middle.  It reminded me of an Indian shield, but needs a little more color.

red and green feathers

A different kind of red and green.  These are the feathers of a tropical bird we saw in San Diego.  The texture is different from plant material in the earlier cross shapes and the circle has a different color feather as contrast. 

humming bird

On the feeder a different view. 

Hummingbirds

Over the 4th of July we had lots of humming birds at the feeder in the mountains.  There were 5 birds in the original picture, not all quite visible.   I liked the division of 4 (on the 4th).

Merlin

This is probably the last of the bird/feather mandala works a while.  This is a female Merlin a member of the falcon family.  She came to the bird feeder a couple of years ago to feed herself.  I took her picture thru a window so she was not as clear as I would have liked, but I did get a catch light in her eye.  The feathers make the pattern.

another blue bird

A blue feathered bird at the zoo.  I loved the patterns the feathers made, the touch of purple and the star pattern at the center.

more feathers

The brilliant blue of the peacock's head forget his tail feathers, if you hadn't noticed I like blue!

More in the bird/feather series

Here's just the blue jay,  in Photoshop there is a filter called poster edges, which I have used a lot lately.  It edges the objects in black and groups colors in the background which sometimes gives it a painterly look.

Blue Jay

This Blue Jay is interesting on a coupe of levels.  If you squint your eyes it has a repetitive shape that is roughly a six sided (the tail being a really short side) within a six part mandala. It just surprised me that an organic shape of a bird could look geometric.  The other surprising element of this piece is the six feather like elements radiating from the center are not feathers at all, just part of a branch.

sparrow

Here's the small guy with sun shining sun on his back!  We were out at the Wildlife Santuary in Keensberg, CO, so there were many other subjects to take pictures of - but it was like he posed for me.

Sparrow

Sparrow wings and breast.  This guy was sitting near me on a post in the bright sunlight, that brought out the richness of the colors on his back.  Sunlight does wonders for color!  I like the gray breast that forms a heart shape in the mandala.

Duck with a curl

Here's where the blue in the previous mandala came from, the tail end of a mallard.  

blue feathers

This square tile has blue feathers from a mallard duck.  Within the world of feathers there are rough ones, smooth ones, colored ones, dark and light ones and you can see the texture. I want to feel it, too (but can't so just use your imagination!)

real feather

the feather the previous pie slice was taken from.