Happy Birthday, Mom!

I struggled for quite a while trying to figure out what to give my mom for her birthday. Birthday gifts are hard, especially for someone I've been giving gifts to my whole life - that exhausts a few options as repeats ;-) And I love and appreciate my mom, so I always want to do something special for her. But she refuses to give lists or ask for presents, which makes it all the more challenging to come up with the perfect gift idea (silly mom, of course I'm going to give you a gift!).

Today is her birthday. This time yesterday, I still was struggling to figure out ideas as to what to give her. But as I was sitting at my desk at work yesterday, I realized I should do something with chipmunks. She LOVES chipmunks, and that just seemed like a good idea to go with.

At first I started browsing Etsy and picking prints of photos of chipmunks that I thought she'd like. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized our walls are already full of prints and photos and too much stuff for me to be picking something to take up more space. I needed something small. In fact, why don't I just make something small. . . and that's how I got the idea to create a painting for her.

I worked a 10 hour day yesterday so I came home really tired - but I was determined to get a painting done by the end of the night. I pulled out one of my watercolor postcards and my art supplies and pulled up a reference photo on my tablet. And got started. I didn't take progress shots because I was worried how it was going to turn out - I'm not very confident in watercolor so I was pretty nervous.

After about two hours (and pulling out my gouache to do some highlights), this was my result:

my little chipmunk - actual size is 4x6in.

I'm really happy - and frankly, surprised - at how well this turned out.

The green leaf  and twig were not in the original reference image but I felt like the composition needed that element to balance the piece. I like the touch of golden green too, especially as green is my mom's favorite color.

The piece took a little over 2 hours to complete from start to finish. I then went out at around 1am to buy a frame and a birthday card. This morning I sprayed the piece (to set it) and then put it in the frame. Ta-dah!

all framed and ready to gift!

I'm so happy. I went from no idea for a birthday gift to a beautiful, thoughtful one. I'm so grateful that I've been blessed with the talents that I have, and that they enable me to offer something beautiful of myself to those that I love. ♥ ♥ ♥

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!

~m.d.