Day One 60 Days of Birds Mixed Media Challenge

Rodney

6x6 inches.

Pastels, graphite, and white Signo gel pen on black scrapbooking paper.

Watercolors

I shall be dragging out my tubes of watercolors today...

because while I seem to own ever single commercially produced watercolor crayon...

palette...

or pencil...

I even have metallics and iridescent watercolors... and yet I don't have the color I need which is a true beige i.e. bird egg colors.

Fledgling A Stitched Story!

Available: Machine stitched free form style (thread drawn) fledgling bird on natural dyed silk organza fabric! Learn more here in my shop! 

Day 1 of the 60 Day Bird Journal Challenge!

See the red circle in the lower left hand corner?  It's highlighting an old enamel dish pan filled with organic corn for the birds and the fat squirrel that's made it's home in our attic, I named the squirrel Trouble.

Since it's mid afternoon as I post this there are no birds out and about, I expect to be seeing some closer to evening time.  For now they are holed up in those arborvitae's to the north of our dog run, I could hear a few peeps over the sound of the traffic.

I'm still working on my poem for Day 1 and will post later this evening, other activities are pressing at the moment, like the making of black-eyed peas with greens for our New Years Dinner.  At the moment hubs is grinding organic corn for the corn bread he'll make to go with our meal.

60 Day Bird Challenge 2015

Join me in 2015 for 

The 60 Day Bird Challenge!!!

January 1st to March 1st, 2015

To participate sign up for my special newsletter created for this challenge alone.  You will receive one email prompt daily for each day of the Challenge.

There is also a facebook group for those participating in the challenge and for those wanting to encourage those of us in the challenge.  In order to receive the daily prompts you MUST subscribe to the newsletter as I will not be posting these on the blog or in the group. 

Each day you will be encouraged to paint, draw/stitch, or write something about Birds. 

WIP Crows Follies

Crows Follies No's. 1 thru 14

There is nothing like seeing them laid out like this to make one realize what needs to be done, fixed, changed, etc.!  I'll have to have John make two new raised panel frames for me to replace No's 11 and 12 as these two do NOT go with this particular series color wise.  The good news is is I'll have him make more than two new frames for a new series in the blue tones.

Off to add more paint and ink to these panels.

On My Desk

From this

To this.  All told there will be a minimum of 28 new pieces in my Crows Folly series.  These fourteen panels are 6x6x2 inches, with the remaining panels being 8x8x2 inches.  I have several large panels as well for this series, however they will take a bit more work to finish.

Posies with Bird

Watercolor and pen on mixed media paper.

Paring Down & New Beginnings!!!

Paring down, starting with my websites and blogs, and soon to be my wet studio, and have new goals and an actionable plan for future art and designs. I'd do handsprings from the excitement, but my allergies are preventing me from doing so today, lol.

I have two immediate goal dates, September 6th to get my new designs/collections for licensing up onto my blog (group accountability is great for this!!!) and October 4th for the Open Studio Tour. I need to deep clean for the tour, which means an opportunity to get rid of stuff I haven't used in years and probably won't be using again anytime here in the near future, and get prints made of newly created works of art for the tour!

The next goal after that is the Month of November which is National Writing Month and the goal is to get my last Natural Dye Book finished, and hopefully the app (by the end of December) and then it's on to other activities. I'm culling the Natural Surface Academy, etc., too many things on my plate which prevents me from creating and doing what I really love! Also no more teaching!!!

The 60 Day Crow (Bird) Challenge has been a wonderful experience, I will do the big reveal here in a few days.  I now have plans to run this challenge again, as it was quite popular!

Queen Anne's Crows No. 7 in Progress

I ditched the clock body altogether and am so much happier for having done so, now to create a panel (the one in the upper portion of the niche is a sample) for the upper section of the niche and this piece is good to go.  I'm off to stitch up a new panel for this piece!

WIP Queen Anne's Crows No 5

I'm not overly ripped on this shade of red, but for a base coat on the wood this will do, I'm wanting a much deeper shade of red. As for the paint dripping on the stitched panel never fear, that panel has been covered with plastic wrap.

I have to say I had doubts but this was a great idea, I figure if I truly end up hating the color(s) I can always paint the piece black, BUT, the act of painting the wood got me to thinking about the piece, what I want to add and where, what other colors do I want to add, do I want to leave the birds as is?  Btw you can get hose birds from my stencil series over at StencilGirl Products, the birds are a part of my Three Crows Series.  Am off to look at my copper nail and barbed wire collections while this layer of paint dries!

Before the first layer of red paint.

WIP Red Crow

The madder lac dyed silk organza is much darker than these photos depict, the stencil sketch of the crow barely peaking through due to the lighting.  I managed to stitch an outline of the crow in a coordinating reddish heathered wool thread from Aurifil Threads.

I've decided that this smallish piece will now become part of a larger piece I'm working on for my upcoming solo show, as crows and ravens have always been a prominent icon out here on the western prairie and plains.

Cyber Monday Sale ~ Bird Lovers

Queen Anne's Crows No. 2

Digitally Printed Silk Fabric, on Painted Timtex, Machine Stitched.

 

Gifts for your Favorite Bird Lovers

 

I loaded my shop last night with some of my favorite bird pieces, I will be adding more later today!

WIP - Autumn Bird Piece

Alcohol inks, gesso, black birds in tree inverse stencil, crow lino block - so far.  Off to add more layers.

Crow Stamp

Carving stamps again, this one is 4x6 inches, the next one will have feather and wing features.

Empty Nest

Empty Robins Nest.

Hackberry tree seeds now inhabit the nest.

Black Birds in Tree Now Available!!!

I'm so excited to announce that my stencils are now available through StencilGirl Products!!!
 

The stencil is available as an inverse of the design and also as a traditional cut out.

 

Black Birds in Tree Inverse with Lilac and Ecualyptus Tsukineko Inks.

This page is the result of brayering a sheet of clean paper onto the Inverse stencil while it was wet with alcohol inks.

 

Crow on Yellow 052713

A little bit more of the right side has been beaded, I'm thinking the body should be done by Friday, and then to decide on finishing the border.

In other news... the splint is off, sorta.  I had it off for most of the day but then had to put it back on again. It's amazing how one little itty bitty artery is position in such a place so as to see all sorts of activity during the course of the day. 

American Robin

Robin taking advantage of the freshly tilled ground, hunting up worms I'm sure.  I love how it's plummage blends in with the ground.

Robin Eggs