Laura Mallaghan Illustration

  Today’s Christmas Eve! And it’s going to be a busy day, prepping for tomorrow. I’ve got to do some gifts wrapping, tidy the Christmas decorations and baking my own Christmas biscuits. I won’t relax until Christmas night when my family and I get tired after eating the Christmas snacks! Anyway, here’s my painting, as my Christmas Bird collection, of a male Bullfinch perched on the Christmas wreath. The red and green, with subtle yellow and white, gives the Christmas vibes, although the red is more eye-catching.  I called this artwork The Christmas Red Wreath. I thought this male Bullfinch is a nice bird for Christmas in British, they works nicely with any Christmas objects. I’m lucky that I have a variety of plant in my garden I can get some inspiration. Like these two: This painting will be a Christmas card, which I will put up for sale later next year! I like to thanking you for reading this and all of my blogpost and wishing you a merry Christmas and have a joyful day. 🎄💜...

 Merry Christmas! We're having a wet Christmas here, I like the frosty or misty on a Christmas Day, because that how I remember when I was a little girl, just right for British winter weather. Over the last weekend, I have been painting this little cutie with some berries, that looks very Christmasy, imagine this as a Christmas card! This artwork is called 'Long-tailed Tit Having Some Red Berries for Christmas', this berry is similar to what we humans have for our Christmas dinner, the cranberry sauce, although this is cherry from the cherry tree. I have found this twig with berries from outside by my workplace, using it for the reference and inspiration. Here's the photo reference of berried twig. As I stared at this almost wilted twig, there were few small birds flew to perch and picking some berries, I was inspired for the Christmas painting. The small bird I chose to have is white-headed Long-tailed Tit, they looks really cute and works well with the Christmas style...

Merry Christmas! Here's an artwork of the Blue Tit and White Christmas. It's a different bird this time for the Christmas theme, the robin is always seen on illustration, such as cards, because of their red breast and looking fluffy, I thought blue tit could include for this theme, looking at my painting of blue tit on a Pyracantha red berries, as known as Red Firethorn, with the snow, and though it looks very festive as well as they work well together. Here's the process of painting by using gouache paint and acrylic for the snow. Firstly, I've included a photo of Pyacrantha I took from my front garden for observational drawing.  Painting process: Once I finished painting the snow,  I thought it's looks a lot like Christmas. Plus, I'm quite pleased with my attempt of painting the snow, better than I thought. Hope you'll have a merrily Christmas Day. 🎄🎅 And hope this photo of my foster dog with a Christmas bow cheer you up from difficult year.