The second piece in my 'South Dakota Wildlife Series'

Hello to all!
The sun is shining, the birds are singing and the temps are going up instead of down! Yeahhhhh!
I have been busy in the workroom these past few weeks. I finally had some time to finish my interpretation of the class projects taught recently by Master Artist, Irina Orlova. What an excellent, patient teacher she is!
This one is titled ''Time for a Rest' and, like the one with the pair of pheasants below, depicts wildlife scenes from our Great Plains. I love the fall here on the plains when the geese fly through. I have seen thousands and thousands of them swarming around harvested corn fields and the sight is breathtaking. When we lived in Clark we had a small farm with an old 2-story house. There were corn fields all around us and I would go up to the 2nd story and open the windows to see and hear the geese flying and circling the fields. The sight and sound were almost overwhelming! I learned that part of the huge flocks would stay aloft, as lookouts, and circle while part of them would fly down to feed. Then those would fly up and relieve some of the others so they could feed. Pretty amazing, huh?! I made the sky of corn husk and used faded day lily leaves for the corn field. The geese are made from banana peel and white poplar leaves. The trees are done from fall leaves. The buildings are done with white poplar leaves and fall leaves.

Now I am working on a picture of buffalo silhouetted against one of our majestic sunsets. Stay tuned!

Good morning! The snow is finally starting to melt up here and the sun is shining. Everyone I see has a big smile on their face today! Hurry spring...we are ready!
I finished a pressed flower picture that I would like to share with you all today. I did this one as an on line class project through the World Wide Pressed Flower Guild. Our instructor was Russian Oshibana (pressed plant material) artist, Irina O. One of Irina's most beautiful pieces was awarded a first place ribbon at the Philadelphia Flower Show that was held March 1 to March 8. She is a very accomplished artist and a wonderful instructor...we are very lucky to have her on our guild.
The picture we did was a winter scene. Since I live in South Dakota I decided to add a couple of pheasants to my picture...we are the 'Pheasant Capitol of the World', you know! And I changed the tree a bit to look more like what we have here. The technique for the sky was just intriguing! It is made of corn husk...the husk that is closest to the cob and is lighter, almost white in color. Then Irina taught us how to use onion skin for snow. The darkest parts of the tree are made with banana peel. If you are new to pressed flower/botanical art this may sound very strange to you as it sure did to us before trying it. Now all of us on the guild are looking suspiciously at all our fruits and veggies...nothing safe out there anymore!
Hope you like it. I learned volumes from Irina and can't wait for the next class!