Kestrel

I loved painting the hummingbird with the match stick dipped in acrylic so I decided to use this medium again. It creates lines that are thick, messy, precise, scratchy, gloopy and accidental. It looks good when watercolours or inks are worked over the top to add colour. So far I have only done this match stick painting technique for the playing cards project but I want to use it in my America project as well.

Hummingbird on a heartbreak mission

I decided to play with the idea of how delicate the heart is, in terms of both love and physicality. The hummingbird is so tiny and fragile itself, yet it is heading straight for our heart. We see it a split second before it bursts - after all, this thousands-of-a-second view is the only way we can see the hummingbird remaining still during flight. I used black acrylic paint applied with the 'wrong' end of a match stick and the heart is just done with red ink. I'm deciding whether to colour in the hummingbird, so here is a plain version. It works well seeing as red and black are the traditional playing card colours.