This past weekend I once again participated in Do-All‘s Art Clash with my PIC of 3 years Heather Deogracia. Art Clashes/Art Battles are getting increasingly popular. They are live art competitions where artists are given a limited time (usually 3 hours) to complete a work of art from start to finish. As you can imagine, it’s super nerve-wracking. We didn’t even take any photos together until after the relief of the competition’s end, because we were so nervous that we were white as ghosts! (Or, ok, we’re both pretty pale. Whiter than usual I guess 😉 ).

(In the second picture above, we were supposed to be making snooty faces but I still innately smiled the minute the photo timer got to 1 second … Damn you, social conditioning!)

In addition to being my forever Art Clash companion, Heather is also in my Studio Art class at Artshop! This awesome lady came into class on the first day of spring semester and said, “I know what I want my project to be. I want to make a mermaid tale”. This is why she is one of my favorite people. I have not had my body traced on giant paper since elementary school. It was hilarious.

Back to the Art Clash, I really thought I was simplifying this year by doing a happy watercolor tree instead of trying to do something with people or portraits, my usual subject matter of choice. BUT THOSE BIRDS! The detailing was so much more time consuming than I expected, even using prismacolor markers rather than colored pencil. I truly thought I wasn’t going to finish, was cursing myself for drawing so many of them to begin with, and found myself chanting louder and louder inside my own head “The birds, the BIRDS, THE BIRDS!”

I should have learned by now, it all works out in the end.

I present to you, “Color The World”, 18×24 Watercolor and Ink.

I’ve posted this design to my Redbubble Shop, which offers the print on a variety of fun products. Traditional photographic prints are also for sale in my Ebay Store. Wondering what I’ll do next year … one thing is for certain – no more birds.