Stitching "Practice Flights"

I ran across this old article by Karin Winter from the August/September 2008 issue of Quilting Arts magazine about pet portraits. 

I liked Karin's collage approach and thought I would try it for my Merging Visions entry this year. I quilted the background before I added the bird outlines and bird fabric. 

 I used colored pencils, paint sticks and marker to add shading.

I'll probably try this method again. It's very freeing and fast.