“Idaho Birds”-Part 2. Last March I started to design this art quilt. I did a blog post called “Idaho Birds-Part 1”. You can find that post in the March 2021 archives. It covers how I was viewing this art quilt creation at the time. I went on to develop it further and this is what this article is about.

During one of my painting classes with Laurie and Janet, I mentioned that I was working on a new art design. Well, they enthusiastically announced we want to do it too. So now all three of us are collaborating on this art project. They went home and gathered pictures of birds they wanted in the designs and brought them to the next painting session.

We started with the shape of Idaho which we enlarged using easy poster print software on my computer and began placing the birds across the state. I wanted an eagle to be in the panhandle of Idaho and a blue heron in the snake river canyon. They would be the bookends of the piece. I drew in the eagle facing to the right of the picture.

I then painted the eagle in. He didn’t seem right for some reason. I was mulling this over and had to mail some packages at the post office. Then I noticed a picture hanging behind the counter. It was an eagle facing straight forward.

It was perfect. They permitted me to take a picture to use in my artwork.

I Painted the eagle head on another square of fabric making sure to include some of the brown feathers around his shoulders. Then backed it with heat n bond and then fussy cut the brown feathers. It will blend better when I do the finish quilting.

The owl was painted onto the original background as well as the blue heron. Originally the quail on the right-hand side was painted onto the background at the bottom of the tree trunk. Then I realized that the eagle, owl, and quail were in a straight line from top to bottom. That wasn’t going to work. So I cut out the quail and painted the sage bush on a separate piece of fabric and appliqued it to the bottom of the tree to cover the hole.

After reattaching the quail I then painted his family next to him.

This bird was added because last summer the flickers were attacking the back of our house. For the whole summer it was Karen vs Flickers. Karen won of course!

I love how the owl came out. Doesn’t he look soft?

Here is a closer look at the blue heron. At the moment I am waiting for thread from Quilted Joy to start thread painting this design. I ordered a bunch of browns to do the rock and cliffs. Stay tuned for “Idaho Birds” Part 3!