Tutorial: Spooky Bird Diorama

Do birds freak you out? Just me? Well, obviously not just me since Hitchcock made a movie all about how freaky birds are, which I’ve never seen because they creep me out. One by one birds are lovely little expressions of freedom, but in a group, menacing. So I wanted to make a little Halloween diorama celebrating that creepiness.

I am really not a great painter, so don’t be intimidated. The secret to the gradated background is by using a Floating Medium. I picked out four different colors ranging from navy through gray and down into a pale ice blue. Starting with my darkest color I dipped my brush in the floating medium and then into the paint and painted a stripe. Repeat that for all four colors and let the floating medium work the colors into one another. It’s kind of a magic effect.

Use a dry paintbrush and go over the paint one final time to blend in any brush strokes and give it a feathery look.

While that dries, make your birds. You can really use any kind of clay that you can harden, but I used an air dry clay.  Pinch off a small piece and roll it into a ball. With one hand, pinch to make a head.

Then with your other hand, push in to make the back and tail.

Give it any fine tuning necessary and let it dry.

Paint the birds black if necessary, but if you use black polymer clay and bake it, you can skip this step.

Drill two small holes in each side of the inside of the frame. Glue an end of wire inside each hole. Then glue your birds onto the wire.

I love the bleakness of that sky up against those birds. So spooky. Did you know that a collection of crows is called a murder? A murder of crows. How are we not supposed to be terrified by them?

Did I leave anything out? Are you better at learning visually? Lucky for you I made a video! Come subscribe to my Youtube channel and don’t miss a thing.

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