If you’ve ever had Grackles at your feeder, you’ll understand why in bird-speak that flock is called a “plague.” They will clean out a feeder faster than any other bird I’ve seen. Yet yesterday, a beautiful, inky, iridescent Grackle came to visit. He didn’t partake at the feeder, just stuck around long enough to pose for photos. He inspired me to create one out of felt.
The challenge with this guy is the iridescent colors. Essentially, he’s a black/brown bird, but as in yesterday’s Grackle, depending on how the light hits him, he’s quite colorful. I like my birds and critters to look realistic, so I used some watered down acrylic paint and painted the felt – blue on the head and shades of copper, green, and purple on the wing. It’s still black, but now there’s a hint of color. Warning: when the paint dried, the felt was much harder to run the needle through.
Many Grackles I’ve seen are mostly black aside from the head. Experiment with yours and let me know what ideas you all come up with to make him unique. Enjoy!
I think it might work better to apply the paint “wash” after the bird is stitched. Love this and all your patterns!
I may be all alone in this but the greedy golden eyed grackle is one of my favorite birds. Yesterday we had about 30 at the feeders then they all took off at once. Time to refill the feeders!
Clear nail polish might also give that iridescent effect. Beautiful!
Thank you!
Thank you for the pattern. Instead of using paint, there are iridescent powders used in stamping that you can brush on then you can then set with hair spray. It works on card stock so I will have to experiment on felt. This way the iridescence can be applied after the stitching is completed.
I love this idea!