My Hummingbird Gift

  This hummingbird has a story. When I first learned about the art form Zentangle, I Googled images right away. I saw beautiful drawings of every sort done, I was overwhelmed and also thought mine would never be very good. I found a hummingbird drawn my Norma J. Burnell, and tried very hard to recreate it. Of course mine was totally out of proportion, and just looked plain bad. I kept at it, and drew the one, you can see it in the gallery.

   I was so pleased that if one looked at it, they could see that it was a bird, so this was a great start! After a few more months of drawing lessons, I decided to give it a try, go really slow and see if I could draw a better one. This is how it turned out.

   During my discovery of drawing and that with a ton of hours, I could get so much enjoyment out of this I started to feel really bad that the one person who I knew would be so proud, so excited and wanting to see everything I learned would be my mother. Of all the people in the universe, she would have gotten the biggest kick to see how much I have improved. I am not saying I am a fabulous artist at all, just that she would have loved to see this. In fact, her house probably would be littered with my drawings.

   It is so bittersweet my love of art, I can't share it with her in person, to hear her feedback, for her to smile and tell my how happy my drawings make her. I would have made this for her, the other person I knew would enjoy this would be my aunt and uncle. So I made this for them. I have to be honest, during the creation I cried a lot. This little birdie is full of the dreams I had about drawing, and the fact that I am enjoying it is even better. 

   This drawing took about 3 hours to draw in pencil, then 4 more in ink, and about 30 hours with coloring. Each color has about 8 layers of different combinations to look just right. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did creating it. My son bought a lovely dark wood frame with brass rivets. So it was truly a gift from both of us made with much love. My aunt and uncle are very special people, I love them very much.

~Pixiey