New Book Upcoming: Free As a Bird

One of the things waiting for me at home when I returned was the preview copy of my new book, Free As a Bird. Since so many of you seemed to enjoy the artwork from my small bird journal (check the sidebar for previous posts with all the images, or my Flickr account for the bird journal set), I decided to publish it. The size is slightly larger than real life, as the books are about 7" square and the real journal is about 6" square.

I tried to be as faithful as possible to the original and have the images all bleed over the edge of the paper, which unfortunately resulted in some cropping that I wasn't happy with. Today I've already gone back and added a slight border to each page and resubmitted the book for a new print. As soon as I see if my approach fixed the slight issues, I'll be putting the books up on my Etsy site. Stay tuned!

Bird a Week #19

Here it is -- the final installment of my Bird Journal. Tomorrow I leave for a trip to Prague, Vienna and Budapest. I'll return on June 1, hopefully to find the first printed copy of Free as a Bird to proof. After any corrections, I'll be able to print off more to offer for sale. Feeling a need for a copy of your own?

Check out the other birds of the week at the blog hop:

Bird a Week #18

The next to last page in the current bird journal:

Not to worry! I ordered more watercolor paper yesterday to make another journal. I'm considering a small travel journal for my upcoming trip to Prague, Vienna and Budapest. I leave in one week. Yikes!

See the other Bird a Week challenge entries here:

Bird a Week #17

Only two more pages left in my bird journal! What will I do? Really, I have to decide if the bird imagery has run its course. I was hooked long before the "slap a bird on it and call it art" phase started. Perhaps it's time to see what else speaks to me and find something new to explore. Perhaps I'll precede the trend again.

 Check out the other Bird a Week challenge entries on the blog hop:

Bird a Week #16

I'm catching up on the Bird a Week entry that I'm behind, fitted in amongst furniture shopping with my father to replace items that didn't make the trip: an apartment friendly dining table and chairs, a new mattress, a smaller sofa, and replacement washer & dryer. Almost all the boxes are unpacked. The nonfunctional air conditioner (in new construction!) is fixed, at the expense of the nice stonework on the front facade. Lots of deliveries this week. It's almost livable.

Check out the other Bird a Week entries in the blog hop:

Bird a Week #15 - Soar

It's interesting how the second journal that I began to have artistic busywork while visiting my parents is now coming to a close. I have just a few more pages, in various levels of completion. This seems to coincide with the removal of my need to travel repeatedly to visit them.

My father closed the sale of his house this week, 13 months after my mother's death, and moved to Texas. Over the weekend, Keenan and I flew up to Bartlesville, Oklahoma for one last round, to pack and supervise loading the moving van. After various bobbles and bloopers regarding paperwork for a new senior apartment, movers who didn't work out and had to be replaced at the last minute, and a scramble to get to Austin ahead of the belongings, it's all coming together. We are still dealing with issues, such as the AC in the brand new apartment that doesn't work on a hot day, but it feels like progress after many weeks of limbo while showing the house, getting estimates of various sorts and just general waiting.

Very fitting that the journal is coming to an end at just this time.

To see the other entries in the Bird a Week challenge, check out the blog hop:

Bird a Week #14 -- Feathers, Flight & Song

Latest addition to my bird journal below. I have only four more (semi)blank pages to fill, so I've started transferring images into a new Blurb book, available soon!

View the other entries in this week's Bird a Week challenge here:

Bird a Week #13 -- Bird Watching

Last weekend we went birding out to Pedernales State Park, where they have a nice blind. It's a great place to sit and watch all the wildlife coming in for the free seed, peanut butter and water. Now they've added a new blind as well, so there are two different spots (nice photos here). It's interesting to see that the established spot is much more active than the new, even almost a year after installation. This round we saw lots of goldfinches, house finches, cardinals, titmice, mourning doves, a red-wing blackbird, several types of hummers, various sparrows, chickadees, and my favorite -- a ladderback woodpecker with a red crown who would come and sit right on the window ledge to "people watch."

To see the other birds of the week, visit the blog hop:

Ring a Week 13/52 - Benefits of Working in a Series

My desk is starting to be littered with rings...and we're only one quarter of the way through the challenge. Because I liked the ring from last week so much, I decided to riff on its design. That brought me to thinking about the benefits of working in a series.

I was quite taken with the simplicity of the design last week. The ring was, in many regards, the easiest and quickest to build of all the rings I've made so far in this challenge. On the other hand, it wasn't by any means the least of the collection. In fact, it seemed rather refined, with the reverse relating so beautifully to the front, the egg shape echoing the nestling, and the satin finish yielding an elegant, polished tone. Where do I go from there? Do I do the obvious and simply reproduce it with a different image in the center? Do I add enamel to bring in a pop of color? Do I set it aside to revel in my feeling that it's superior and I can't top it, so I should go back to another design for a reinvention?

Instead I decided to try a merging of two designs, which is quite typically where I'm always working. I like that "on the fence" place, I guess, where I try to combine two ideas that I've been working on separately to find something new and exciting. That's when I spotted the toggles lying on my work table, victims of a rejected class proposal, looking forlorn and forgotten. One of the toggle rings had a similar shape to my nestling ring, with an oval opening in the center. Ah...I could cut my top a tad differently and add an extra triangle for a roof to make a birdhouse ring!

Away I went to quickly cut out the pieces needed, deciding to place a perched bird inside the birdhouse. That's where I erred a tad. I placed the bird too high, forgetting that the roof would hide its face, leaving it a birdhouse for a headless bird. Not quite what I had in mind! So I omitted the roof and just embellished directly with rose and leaves. I guess I have another iteration to try for next week.

I'm missing my Master Muse tutorial sessions. I enjoyed designing the projects and photographing all the steps and writing out instructions. I wonder if there would be any market for small PDF tutorials to sell through my Etsy shop. Beadmakers do this all the time; perhaps it's time for metal clay to get in on the fun. This birdhouse toggle clasp is first in line for such an experiment.

Bird a Week #12

Feeling like Spring has arrived, I finished this daffodil colored page in my Bird Journal. I'm nearing the end, with only a few more pages to go until the book is finished. I've been scanning and uploading pages into a new Blurb book, so stay tuned for your opportunity to peruse a Bird Journal of your very own.

Visit the other entries for the Bird a Week challenge here:

Bird a Week Flickr Group

Bird a Week #11

Interesting that I've left a lot of violet pages in my journal to fill in last -- I noticed the last two were similar colors and I actually did a third. I'll leave that one until next week, in order to interject a gray page, that actually shifted more blue.

See the rest of the Bird a Week 11th week entries here:

Bird a Week #10

This week has been taken up with lots of kitchen research. The paperwork has been signed, and the first payment made, to start our full kitchen remodel. I need to have spec sheets to give to the designer within a week, so appliances must all be decided pronto.

Luckily, I have a few extra bird journal pages stashed for just such overwhelming times. Doesn't "the early bird gets the worm" seem completely relevant? The real hindrance to a quick remodel will probably be me, if I wind up dragging out decisions. I believe I have the cooktop, ovens and refrigerator finally selected. Granite is settled (if I can actually get slabs of my someone rare choice) and marble is either/or. Layout is the issue I'm most concerned about now.

Follow the other Bird a Week entries here:

Bird a Week #9

I'm just returned home from a week with my father (he is doing well -- tired and weak, but so very lucky to have caught the kidney cancer while still confined and to have apparently dodged even temporary dialysis). I'm trying to catch up with the house, after leaving the high school/college teen home alone. He did a great job, but a teenage boy's idea of a clean house is different than mine.

I am ahead on my bird journal, though, so I thought I'd jump in and post my Bird a Week entry early this week, to allow me time later to try to catch up on other commitments. This quote seemed quite apropos to my father, who it trying to sell his home in the midst of his recovery. Whether we wish to or not, sometimes we just have to move forward.

Check out the new blog hop links and visit the Bird a Week Flickr group.

Bird a Week #8

I've had lots of time to work in my journal this week, helping my father out through his surgery. Miraculously, everything has gone extremely smoothly. The surgeon was able to do the procedure via laparoscopy, which significantly reduces the recovery time. Even so, the ability of the one kidney to take over the work of two was of concern. It turns out that the tumor must have already majorly impacted the function of the removed kidney, as the tests showed the numbers little affected. After only two days, the doctor couldn't find a reason to keep him, so we are back at his home, much more comfortable. Although sore, weak and tired, it's hard to believe he had such a major surgery only days ago. It's rather reminiscent of his quick bounce back from the knee replacement only months ago. I sure hope I got those quick healing genes.

Visit the other participants in the Bird a Week challenge:

Bird a Week #6

This week I'm feeling inspired, I guess. I have a glass workshop tomorrow with the inimitable Sara Sally LaGrand, and I'm also headed out of town on Sunday and Monday for a quick Valentine's getaway with my dear husband. Consequently I'm finishing up all sorts of work early to make room in my schedule.

I chose one of the unfinished two-page spreads in my journal, where the spirals and quail were in place, but everything else needed completion. I searched through my list of bird quotations for one that fit my mood. Vision seems to be the appropriate concept, as I've been interviewing contractors for an upcoming kitchen remodel.

What started out as granite countertops and new backsplash soon morphed into new, non-builder grade appliances and then replacements for the cheap white thermofoil cabinets. Why replace everything else and leave the lowest of the low behind? The vinyl coating several years ago went completely yellow and received a coat of paint to restore the white. Now the paint has worn through around the knobs on high use doors and the vinyl coating is starting to release on edges. It costs half as much to sand these particle board constructions down and repaint as it does to get brand new, real wood cabinets designed to my specifications!

Lots of work though to make decisions, the first of which is a contractor. Who do I choose? The little guy who really wants the job and has already gone out of his way to bring his carpenter subcontractor out to discuss ideas with me? Or the big guy who is doing my neighbor's remodel (coming up on five weeks of work and several more to go) and tells me I should hire him because they are big, have their own in-house people (no subcontractors) and the everyone including the major uses them? Dare I get one more bid or will that just confuse the issue? So many questions keeping me up at night.

At any rate, the latest journal entry is finished. See all the other pages on my Flickr page (link to the right) and visit the other Bird a Week participants here:

Bird a Week #5

Texas may be further south, thus avoiding the brunt of this wicked winter storm, but it's still plenty wintry for me. High temperatures have been in the twenties for the past several days. Last night we got half an inch of snow, which only happens every few years.

Despite the sunshine this morning, quickly melting off the white dusting from roadways and housetops, it seemed a dark journal page would be appropriate to the prevailing mood.

Check out the rest of the Bird a Week entries here:

Bird a Week #4

Yes, I did already post some birds this week, so I technically fulfilled my commitment. However, in my own mind, I want to restrain the Bird a Week challenge to my drawings. I enjoy them so much, and it's easy for them to get squelched down below the chemistry prep and Master Muse tutorials and other general life issues. Luckily, I have pages of the Bird Journal in many different stages of completion, so I've been able to cheat a bit and only finish a few pages that were nearly done anyway, in these early weeks when I really have too much going on.

See the other entires in the Bird a Week Challenge via the blog hop:

Bird a Week #3

The studio time this week has been good. I'm gaining ground on my commitments. I finished my third Bird a Week entry a day early (my self-imposed deadline is Friday). Of course, the three so far were all in various stages of completion last year; I'm just adding bits and pieces. This one needed the tree inked in, the floating ovals and dots, and some color shifting.

Also on my accomplishments list: taxes (ugh!), a pair of earrings almost complete, Ring a Week 3 through the first firing, some photography, and the beginning of new Etsy listings. Funny how doing the taxes can refocus the mind on selling something.

To see what the other members of the group are doing:

Bird a Week #2

I finished another page from the bird journal. This page doesn't scan very accurately, as the background is actually a metallic bronze color.

Want to see what the other members of the group are doing? Check the Bird a Week Flickr group or investigate the blog hop here (silly me, I added the same old link before, but I've edited to give the new one):

Bird a Week #1

Ruth Baillie is a fellow bird lover and artist over at Birdland Creations, who conceived the idea of a "Bird a Week" challenge. Bird fanatic that I am, how could I resist?

For my first entry, I finished another page in my Bird Journal. This one is titled Branch.

For those jumping anew into my Bird Journal entries, the process I use is as follows (see photos and details of the sequence here):

1. I constructed the small 6"x6" journal from blank watercolor paper.
2. Color was randomly applied to every page, using washes of acrylic paint.
3. Using white ink or paint, I swirled in the scrollwork in the background.
4. I printed out photos of various species of birds from a Google image search, which were then trimmed and pasted in. 
5. From my collection of bird themed quotes, I chose one to fit the page, then penned it in by hand in my own original font.
6. Details were added: crosshatching, floating ovals, shading and extra color with watercolor pencils, alterations to the birds, etc.
7. Voila! Another page.

Want to see what the other members of the group are doing? Check the Bird a Week Flickr group or investigate the blog hop here: