There are 3 things I like to draw, and strangely all of them begin with the letter B; birdcages, birds and bicycles.  However, it is important to note that I don’t like to combine them, I dislike a bird in a birdcage.   Some may think this is because subconsciously I don’t like the thought of my wings being clipped and my freedom removed.  But quite simply I just think the bird overcrowds the beauty of the cage.

Recently I got a bit addicted to lighting, mainly table lamps and lampshades.  I picked up a small glass table lamp from Ikea and a black lampshade from Habitat.  My first thought was to cut the London skyline into the lampshade, but I couldn’t think how it would work.   I then decided to spray paint a simple shape on to it, and hence I chose a birdcage, with 2 birds flying away.

Materials: Lamp, shade and silver spray paint.

I started off by drawing my design on an A3 piece of paper.  Patiently, I cut out the cage and birds using a craft knife.  The piece of paper with the cage and bird silhouette was taped onto the lampshade.  To form the lines of the cage the inside panels of paper were stuck using double sided tape on to the shade.

I then sprayed 3 fine layers of Plasti kote silver spray paint over the design.  However, due to impatience I didn’t think about where else the paint would go and thus ended up with a robot looking forearm.

Once the paint was dry I carefully removed the stencil to produce the end product which now proudly lives on my bedroom windowsill.