5 creative ways to use a feather

I love using feathers in my creative projects and today I am sharing five of my favorite ways to use a feather in creative projects!

Living at the beach I am always finding feathers and while I love them- sometimes they can need some cleaning up. I've found that soaking them in a little bit of dish soap and water works great!

I think my favorite way to use feathers is for sketching inspiration. I teach a lot of sketching classes and feathers are actually one of my favorite examples for demonstrating how to use lines in a drawing.

I love using a feather as a stamp! Simply cover the surface with acrylic paint (using a brush or a brayer) and press firmly into your surface and then pull it away. The result is a beautiful imprint of your feather. This is a great way to create a feather pattern on a surface,a way to add layers to a painted background or just a creative alternative to traditional stamping.

Gelli printing is one of my favorite ways to create really unique surfaces. I start by inking up the plate and then I press feathers to the surface. Next, I place my paper onto the surface of the plate, roll my brayer over the backside of the paper and then peel it away.

The result is a beautiful and abstract print of the feathers!

If you use a brayer in your mixed media painting you will know that your brayer can actually pick up texture and you are able roll that texture from your brayer onto paper. 

I start by placing my feather into wet paint and I roll my clean brayer over the top. Then I roll my brayer onto a clean surface- the result it a really light reverse imprint of the feather.

Painting feathers is a really beautiful way to transform something from nature into a colorful little piece of art! Since feathers tend to absorb paint you have to use a fairly thick layer of color to get everything covered. I've found that spray paint actually works really well. 

Then you can add all kinds of embellishments with a variety of materials- paint pens, glitter, puff paint, beads and more!