It's Back, The 60 Day Bird Challenge!

The 60 Days of Birds Mixed Media Challenge is BACK!!!

I’m excited to offer this new option for 2017!

I’ve had requests for an in-depth version of the challenge for those who want to push their mixed media skills further! I will be sending daily email lessons for the duration of the challenge, you’ll also receive an invite to an exclusive version of our popular Facebook group, The 60 Day Bird Journal Challenge. Get more details and sign up here.

On My Table

Sulfur shelf fungus harvested some fifteen years ago now, displayed on a very old silver plate platter which serves to catch any bit of detritus that seems to fall continuously from the fungus.

Otherwise known as Chicken of the Woods (Laetiporus sp.)

Run, don't walk, to buy this book it's beyond delicious!!!

Back in Decemember I decided that 2016 would be about focusing on studio practices, improving rusty skills, and in general creating more artwork.

Which lead to the purchase of several online classes, books, art supplies and more.  Now if I could only remember what I learned from my Illustrator and Photoshop classes, sigh.  Sometimes I swear my brain is a sieve. 

I ""highly"" recommend these four books, and two more books that will be arriving this week!

Finding Oneself

Or maybe this post should be titled giving myself permission to do what I love!  I've started digging my collections out of my office and wet studio and bringing them into my design studio, you know the place were I create!

There's this meme that has been circulating on Facebook that says, essentially, the things you spend the most time doing, that's your passion and that's where we should focus our energies.  Well my passion is nature, gardening, hiking, collecting natural items like shells, bits of bark with lichens on them, rocks, bones, flowers, seed pods, and more.

And art supplies, I love to collect and use art supplies!

And plants!  This spring I will start amassing native prairie plants that love shade and will turn my front and side yards into prairie gardens!

It's been almost three months since I planted the terrariums, and they are thriving! 

Bumble Bee

Black mark it all pencil and charcoal smudge bag on newsprint.

Black conte, oiled black charcoal, and charcoal smudge bag on sketch paper.  The stippling is due to my sketching this on my drawing table which has a rough surface.

white mark it all pencil, white conte, and white charcoal, on black sketch paper.

60 Bird Journal Challenge Begins in Six Days!!!

Join me in 2015 for the 60 Day Bird Journal Challenge!!!

Each day for 60 days you will receive a newsletter emailed to you from me that details an Observation, an Activity and finally a Challenge!  There will be plenty of opportunities to write, sketch, paint, and even sing during this challenge!  

To join the challenge subscribe to my newsletter that I've created specifically for this challenge, the only way to receive the prompts is by subscribing to the newsletter.

Still Life Number 1 for Fall 2014

First still life for the Fall season, actually I really can't wait for the colorful leaves and the pumpkins!

Buckeye sketch attempt no. 1 (three minute sketch).

If your thinking you can't draw, don't worry about it I can't draw either, lol, that said well I used to be able to draw but without practice the brain and muscles tend to forget.

So I will spend the next couple of days doing quick sketches and color studies of these buckeyes and the rest of the nommies in this mini still life.  I will spend time studying and drawing their curves, etc., another words I will get to know them.

I started with a quick sketch, and then photographed the different sides of this particular buckeye.

Another view, here you can see how the color and the pattern, yes there's a burl like pattern on this particular buckeye, vary.

The spot that on the shell that makes a buckeye recognizable as a buckeye.

60 Day Crow Challenge

It was suggested that I should start a 60 day challenge since I couldn't find one that was theme specific (thank you Jody Lund) I will be drawing Crows and Ravens (Corvus sp.). 

How many of you would like to participate with me in a 60 day bird/crow challenge, this means one bird/crow a day for 60 days.

The birds/crows can be drawn, painted, stitched, sculpted (if you are so inclined), digitally manipulated OR you can write about birds/crows everyday for 60 days.  Interested?

If I get 10 or more peeps interested I will start a facebook group for the challenge.  I will be starting tomorrow as I am getting ready for an Open Studio Tour, October 4th, and want to have some fresh birds to offer up for the tour.

Pumpkin Mess

The pumpkin developed a leak, and this is why I put rosin paper down under live still lifes.  I also have a flannel backed plastic table cloth on top of the hardwood table this still life resides on.

Drawing Table

From this, gobs of canning jars in my way...

To this, squash and pumpkin heaven!  I'll be spending some time tomorrow drawing pumpkins, etc., now that my other drawnig table has been emptied of Falls bounty.

Studio Update 010512

Emptied and ready for the shelves to be removed so that I can paint the bead board back a very lovely shade of fern green.  John has some repair work to do to the shelves, I'm hoping  to be able to load it up come Monday or Tuesday.  Until then...

I have a ton of stuff on both my work table and my drafting/drawing tables!  Working on some storage solutions, for all of the ink I seem to own, for the hutch.

Studio Update 110811

I still need to clean out the hutch, paint the inside, and then load my painting and drawing supplies and still life goodies. 

Setting up a Still Life

Bird Sketches

I think I will have to take a couple of hours in the morning and practice my bird sketches on the machine, my birds are looking a little odd.