Laura Mallaghan Illustration

  Hellooo. I’ve added this new greeting card in my Etsy shop, for Mother’s Day! A sweet greeting card of Mallard duck, a mother and her duckling, with a flower of pink carnation. I thought duck and duckling would make it more cute for Mother’s Day card, how little ducklings following their mother with their waddling little legs. And the mothers, when one or few of her ducklings get lost or stuck, she stay close and finds them, communicating with quacks so she can navigate them by hearing their calls. As this mother duck would say, no ducklings left behind! Did you know, the pink carnation flowers traditionally gifted for Mother’s Day and pink symbolises gratitude and love. This cute card are for mum, mum-to-be, step-mum, grandmother, and even for the one who step up to be your mums! Even the duckling is a baby, it doesn’t matter for all of the older children and adults, because mums sees you as her baby, even my mum say the same to me and both of my siblings!  Get this card fr...

What’s behind this flowers? Hints; a greeting card, a big bird in the nest and the foreign wildflowers. What could it be. It’s a White Stork with her chick, with Lithuanian wildflowers. This greeting card is a new baby/new arrival to the family, hence the obvious portrayal of white stork. This card is for my work friend, who’s expecting a baby next month!  However, this isn’t just the new baby greeting card, also my work friend is from Lithuania. So this is a personal card for her, and her partner who’s also Lithuanian, it’s a very meaningful illustration that would makes her think of her home country. Let’s say I was inspired to paint this by her. Heheh 🤭  To make it understandable about the meaning of this bird and the wildflowers. White Stork; is the national bird of Lithuania, this bird is very common as there’s about 13,000 of pairs, as well as they breeds there in summer. Lithuanian believe they’re the symbol of birth, family and wealth. Yellow flower is the Rue “Ruta” ...

  In July 16th, the hottest Saturday, I have been painting outside for the first time in years. With the weather like that, even that was about 30 degree Celsius, I thought I could do painting outside, having a natural light is better to see, especially when I used the metallic paints on this painting. I actually painted underneath the parasol and wore a hat of course, I do not like a sunburn, until later into the evening I burned on my right side. Because I forgot to move myself as the sun move, silly me! Anyway, the nicest time of the day was in the evening. Nice warm air, still better light to see the painting, I even had a glass of rosé next to me! It was bliss. Have a nice weekend. 🎨💜

  In this blog, I’m talking about the painting process of this big painting, as well as what inspired me. First things first, what inspired me to do the big painting, for the first time. All thanks to my work colleague! She’s not really a painter but she actually found her new talent with the painting recently. When she said, many months ago, that she’ll try painting for the first time with the canvas that sat in her house for ages, this canvas is not the small size for the first try, no, it was huge, roughly A1 size. I thought that was very brave of her to do it, especially for the first time. Each time she painted it, she showed me the photos of her process and we talked about what to add, the inspiration, the colours, the failure and success. She even surprised herself with how good her painting is, I also was very impressed by her big painting! Speaking of inspiration, she searched the images search of large paintings, including the birds for me. With every image she showed me,...