Laura Mallaghan Illustration

  What excites me the most in October, is this art challenge! I came across this context post from Instagram, usually the most popular art challenge is inktober, but for the first time ever there’s a bird art challenge. I was so happy seeing that, I remember looking through this particular list in bird art and never be able to find one. Here it is! I’m really, really looking forward to it, which starts tomorrow! If you fancy to do the art challenge and you like birds, here’s a list right here. Have fun! 🖌❤️

Happy Saturday, and guess what, yesterday (17th June) was the hottest day of the year, also it was my aunt’s birthday! I imagined she had a really good birthday that she has been outside sunbathing with a glass of cold wine with her family. What a blissful day to spend. Speaking of birthdays, I have been painting a personal birthday card, for my aunt, of course, using the birds and wild plants with their meaning. Let’s start with the bird, this is the Lesser Redpoll, a finches type of bird and small, slightly bigger than blue tit to compare the size. It has streaky marks and is brown with red spot on its forehead and sometimes a patch on the breast. They’re commonly in Scotland, northern and eastern England, they’re seen in woodland, also visit in the garden. They like to hang upside down on the small twigs from the tree, an easy way to spot them, especially in the season when leaves fall from the trees. A reason I chose this bird is that my aunt lives in Yorkshire, which is in the nor...

Hello! And a happy new year! Did you all have a nice start to the new year?  I actually missed Christmas, that festive vibes, all finished until the next 11 months. Anyway, about my 'delay' post that I have started a year ago, well here it is!  The reason is I have that one, a Christmas gift for my uncle, was a new idea of products that I want to include on here, you'll see when you read through. I believe this is going to be a long blog post. Hehe.  First thing first, I have made a video of my artwork! So snazzy, isn't it? Hehe An inspiration of watching sparrows flying around the feeders, a lot of them hiding behind all these leaves of the bushes I have in my garden, waiting a turn to perch on the feeders, it was like playing hide and seek when I was bird watching. Thinking about it, this has been the busiest time when I was working on this artwork. I actually started in late June or early July in 2020! First foster dog happened, returned to work after lockdown happen...

It's the first weekend of November, the leaves are starting to change colours quite quick as well as starting to fall off the tree a lot, and the temperature went colder. Getting close to winter! In the last week of October, my next-door neighbour has got married! A few weeks before their big day, they have asked to look after their cats while they're away for a few days, agreed to do this for them, that's what nice neighbour do, hehehe. Throughout weeks, I thought I should do a handmade wedding greeting card using the painting as my original artwork, quite like a personal handmade. To use the bird that represents being together for life, I chose the swan as they're, of course, elegant and make a soft look on the card. Using white on the light background was quite difficult, even though I was using a cream card. I don't want to use too much white as it will make it look too heavy, adding water ended up too washy, hence I have been experimenting for quite a while. In...