Details about the Original Work

Title: Pelican No. 1
Size: 8 x 10″ (portrait orientation)
Media: handmade watercolor, Ozark foraged pigments, imported minerals
Substrate: watercolor paper
Pigment source: shale gray, limestone white, yellow sandstone, sassafras leaf, russet sandstone, green clay, lapis lazuli

Available in prints, notecards

This pelican painting was a special request by my sister. I had no idea how difficult a pelican would be to paint! I’m most proud of how the eye and bill turned out. This is my only pelican painting and is the only one of my paintings (so far) that uses a color NOT from the Ozarks.

The blue in the eye came from lapis lazuli, a stone native to Afghanistan. This mineral is the source for blue most often used in Renaissance paintings, especially for the robes of the Virgin Mary. And I used French green clay in the gray of the pelican’s back. Now I have a green stone to use for this instance, but I didn’t know of it at the time this painting was created.

To see the process of making this painting, click HERE.

Pigment sources

Stones

The brown and russet came from sandstones that grow wild here on our land. Some of the gray came from french green clay, some from shale, and the black from charred wood. White came from ancient tumbled limestone that I find in the creeks here.

Bone

I char and ash bones to get black and white. (These colors were not used in this painting, as that is a technique I learned later).

Reference Image Credits

Photo by Shelby Townsend.

Prints

All of my prints are processed in house with a professional giclée art printer using archival inks. The paper is archival watercolor paper for high quality prints.

Notecards

Notecards are 4 x 5.5″, blank inside, and printed on the same professional printer as my prints. Each are packaged in a clear bag with an envelope and the insert that tells the story of how I began my watercolor journey with Ozark pigments. All of my artwork is available on notecards, and you can mix and match to order a set of 5 for a discount. Sets are not individually packaged, but are attractively presented together in a box. Click here to find out more about notecard sets. (Will link when listing is live. in the meantime, email me at madison@wildozark.com to order a set. I’ll invoice you.)

NFT Art

This artwork is not yet available as an NFT. If you’d like to mint one, let me know!

More Info

All of my paintings begin with foraging for rocks, bones, clay, or other pigment sources. If you’d like to read a little more about my life of foraging for rocks, read this post: She Delivers in Spades. If you’d like to see how the paints are actually made, read this post: Making Smooth Paint from Rock Dust.

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Contact Me:

email: madison@wildozark.com
IG: @wildozark
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Twitter: @wildozark

brown pelican

Pelican No. 1