Wooden Plaque with Bird

I  began with a plain unpainted wooden plaque that measures 12" x 12".

I also used wired twine and green leaves by the yard.

After sketching out the word love I formed the twine into the word "Love".  Then using hot glue a attached the leaves to the back of the word.

Next I set this aside until the plaque was finished.

I used white chalk paint for the first layer and lightly brushed it over the entire surface leaving parts of the bare wood showing through.

Next I randomly used these two colors to fill in the bare spots.

Still leaving some bare spots.

Here is the rough sketch I drew for the bird on a scrap piece of paper.  I covered the reverse side with pencil lead and made the tracing onto the wood plaque.

Here is the bird transferred to the plaque.

I painted the bird in white first to make the final colors on the bird pop.

Then I painted the bird, flower, leaves and red berries.

Added yellow berries, highlights and gray shadow around the images.

I also hot glued the twig for the bird to stand on.

And here is the plaque after the word was hot glued to the plaque and all finished.

 Then I turned around and there was my assistant and she is posing next to my tote bag that has here pictures all over it.  I wonder if she knew how cute she looked sitting there?  She is such a little diva.

 Happy Crafting!