Made by Jon Keller
This is a project that that I constructed using several different types of materials .
The star of the show , the bird , was made with paper mache . The finish on the bird is a little unusual. Instead of painting the bird I took different colors of acrylic polymer clay , and , using a small sculpting tool , pressed the clay against the bird . The clay has to be “set” with heat ( 270 degrees ). I did not want to put the bird in the oven so I put him in a metal bowl and used a heat gun . Then I tweaked it in some areas with acrylic paint.
All the wooden pieces came from various wooden items that I have saved …..much of it from a Christmas fruit basket ( I almost never throw away wood ).
The birds legs are made with wire and the perch that he appears to be sitting on ( both perches ) are made from copper refrigeration tubing. He isn’t really sitting on the perch , he is attached to the edge of the box lid with a narrow wooden dowel ( hidden ).
The hinges aren’t really hinges . I took thin sheet copper and cut it , bent it , and embossed it to make faux hinges.
I save all kinds of decorative hardware so that is where the chain and the ring came from.
The inspiration for this piece came from the actual painting called “The Goldfinch” , by the Dutch Golden Age artist Carel Fabritius . If you Google the painting you will see that my piece is a 3-D representation of the painting.
I enjoy doing bird things and have done several .
