It's Mixed Media Month!

Hello again my friends!
The month of February is Mixed Media month for my online course with Carla Sonheim, The Year of the Giraffe. The goal is to use at least two different mediums together and hopefully incorporate some of those supplies that we all have sitting around. And maybe even throw some different things at it all together!
I've done two pieces so far:

 Wading Giraffe with Kitty Paw Print

Mixed Media on Canvas

Supplies used: acrylic paint, airbrush ink, watercolor, gesso and paper. Sookie helped me add to it by walking all over the freshly painted canvas and then tracking blue prints all over the art room. 

Giraffe Portrait

Mixed Media on Watercolor Paper

This one is more simple, just using watercolor, ink and colored pencil. I was very proud of myself on this one because for once my colors weren't a muddled mess! More mixed media to come this month! Stay tuned!

For the sixth week in a row, I took sunrise shots, although I missed both weekend days as I was out with Lita birding. It was totally worth it though as I added 7 new birds to my life list and Lita added 8. The La Sagra's Flycatcher that everyone has been spotting up at the Green Cay Wetlands, well, that one is still eluding us. I'm going to try again this weekend to spot and snap the little shyling.

Black-hooded Parakeet

Sunrises 2013, Week 6

May the sun continue to rise for you all!

Birding Weekend in Sanibel

Hello my friends!
Finally had my first birding outing of 2013 with Lita. We spent the weekend on Sanibel, a place we both love not only because we met there but because it's so full of nature and wildlife. It's a dream locale for photographers, nature lovers and of course, birders. And we are all three! ;-) We had a great weekend which included a couple of really magical moments gifted to us by the universe as well as lots of great birdy sightings. We ended up seeing about 33 different species of birds and Lita added 7 or so to her life list and I added 4. We also ended up with dozens of bites that welted up on our face, hands, chest and legs thanks to a constant attack by no-see-ums, little biting bugs that, you guessed it, you can't see. However, they were so thick we could see them plain as day! They even attacked our scalps. I have itchy hair now. ;-(
And, I have tons of pictures to process. I promised myself I would keep up with the processing this year. Um, yea, right...I can already see how that is going to be a challenge!

Alrighty then! On with the highlights from the weekend in Sanibel:

On Saturday, we arrived in time for a quick drive through Ding Darling before having lunch at The Greenhouse Grill. I was able to add two birds to my life list while at Ding Darling, a Dunlin and a Red Knot. Later in the afternoon we hit Bowman Beach for a bit of shelling and then headed to Captiva to capture the sunset. There was no sunrise that morning at my lake due to rain so I was very happy to at least have a decent sunset.

A sweet Dunlin. They are so cute!

 Beachy Blues

 Sunset 1.19.2013

One of our magical moments was watching a Bald Eagle snatch a fish from the ocean and fly right over us! It was the highlight of day one but unfortunately both Lita and I had no time to adjust our manual settings and we just pointed and shot and none of our pictures turned out (I think we were shooting seashells or waves or some such thing). I managed to salvage one enough that I could add in some clouds I shot earlier along with some texture so that I could at least have a shot to remember the moment by. Not that I would forget...it was a one in a million chance sighting there!

Bald Eagle with Catch

On Sunday we got up before sunrise and headed to Ding Darling, unaware that what lay ahead would be misery in the form of no-see-ums. It was completely overcast so once again, no sunrise. That makes three days this month that I didn't see a sunrise. Hopefully the rest of the month will shine on! At Ding Darling we met other birders who were kind enough to let us use a roll-on eucalyptus bug deterrent which didn't work at all. We also met a nice photographer named Tom Brennan who gave us some no-see-um spray which didn't help either. Lita immediately welted up...it took my body about 12 hours before the allergic reaction set in. Even as I'm typing this I'm in a state of itchy misery. But, the real question is, was it worth it? And the answer is a resounding YES! The highlight of our day included interacting with a Yellow-throated Warbler and this amazing private performance we received from a Stand of Tree Swallows:

Wrong Way

We actually had to sneak into Ding Darling because it was 30 minutes late in opening. There was a line of cars waiting to get in but we were walking so we squeezed around the gate. We later went back and paid our $1.00 to the attendant who said the back of her alarm clock fell open and the battery came out. She felt terribly bad about it and we in turn, felt bad for her! 

Me and Tom with his serious birding lens!

Yellow-throated Warbler

After the morning at Ding Darling, we head to our favorite breakfast cafe, Over Easy for a delicious and filling meal. Of course I had eggs benedict with a side of not only bacon but also sausage! Piggy plate alert!

And, the Over Easy cafe has the best coffee. It was just what we needed to push through the rest of the day which included a hike along Baily Tract which is where we saw the Stand of Tree Swallows (I just love using collective nouns!) and a teenage gator. After a couple of hours there we headed back to Island Cow for a delicious dessert before heading off the island and back to the west coast.

Best.Coffee.Ever

Eggs Benedict, my favorite breakfast 

A Stand of Tree Swallows

Shadowed Selfies

Decadent Dessert

Greetings from Florida!

And, also from last week my sunrise collage:

Week 3

I continued drawing my giraffes for The Year of the Giraffe class with Carla Sonheim. I also did one in pastel. This is our last week for the drawing portion. I hope to add a few more pages to my giraffe sketchbook before the end of the month. 

Next up...a week with Phoebe! I can hardly wait for our adventure! See you all soon!

Forest Magic, Movies, Sunrises and Giraffes

Hello my friends!
I am still recovering from the flu but feeling better everyday. I can't wait until I am 100% and can get out and about again in the world of the living, although if anyone gets me sick again I will be very ticked off. ;-)
This week I found out my sprinkler system has not been coming on for two months! Thus, not only is everything dead in my yard but the stuff that is living has a white-fly infestation. Let me tell you, those buggers are voracious and not easy to get rid of. I was very depressed about the whole thing for a day or so until I realized this is a perfect opportunity to replace the dead stuff with native plants that will attract even more birds and butterflies to my yard. So, I'm trying to look at the bright side of the buggy situation. Maybe by next summer, I will have a lush garden again and new flowers to take pictures of!

So, what have I been doing since being stuck inside with the flu? I've worked on art of course! I finally finished my first illustration done completely in Photoshop. It was a learning experience for sure. I used all my own textures except for one from Distressed Textures for an overlay on the background. Picking out the textures was quite the fun part as I didn't know after making it into a pattern stamp what it would look like on the page until I started painting it on.

Forest Magic

I first drew a rough draft by hand and scanned it into Photoshop. I realized two things at this point: that I drew her two elbows (haha, talk about double-jointed!) and that drawing this directly into Photoshop would have been much easier as I had to go over all the lines anyways to create the "piece" look I was going for.

Rough Draft

I then began to paint in the textures. I ended up with a total of 40 layers! I used textures I made by running ink off of old Nat Geo pages. I then scanned them into Photoshop and created textures from them. Using the Pattern Stamp, I then created a paintbrush effect and added them to my selected areas, one at a time. Yes, that took forever!

As I began to redraw it in Photoshop, some things got erased and some things got added to improve the overall composition. Finally, background textures where added and some of the line drawing layers deleted. I used an old map texture to create the ground. I loved how it looked!

When I finished, I printed it out on my printer on high quality paper and let me tell you, it's gorgeously rich and delightful! I'm going to giveaway the print so if you comment on this post, telling me your favorite part of the piece, I will put your name into a hat and will draw a winner on Sunday. I will send the print matted, signed and ready for framing! What a fun project! I can't wait to attempt another!

I continued the Sunrise shots this week...somehow that has turned into an iPhoneography series and I just hope I can keep up with it. I really only meant to shoot the first sunrise of the year but I've been up everyday in time for the rest of them. Probably not a good thing since I go to bed late and really need rest right now but honestly, who could resist seeing this:

Sunrise 1.9.2013

And wanna know what else has cheered me up this week? One of my goals each year that I put on my dream/visualization board is "continued learning". Last year I did this with gusto and took way too many online classes that I ended up not being able to finish because of all the traveling I did. I have the same kind of adventurous year ahead of me again but I didn't want to give up on the idea of an online class because I really enjoy learning and being pushed out of my comfort zone. So, I chose one that my friend Constance told me about. It's Carla Sonheim's Year of the Giraffe! It's a year-long art project all about Giraffes! OMG. I love Giraffes. How fun is this going to be? I love Carla's drawing. I would love to be more silly and free. I'm too technical with my drawing. I hope to loosen up quite a bit by the time the year and the project is over. And I can't wait to see what kind of giraffes end up being my companions. ;-)

If you would like to read about the Year of the Giraffe or sign up for the course, click here

And finally...I wanted to share a Kickstarter Project with you and hope you will help this talented group of students complete their film, The Furnished Room. The leading lady is my friend Constance's daughter. You can see the video and learn how you can help get this movie made by clicking here. I donated to the project and it feels good to not only give, but to support the arts. Every little bit will help them so don't be shy! You know you always wanted to see your name in the credits of a film. ;-)

I hope everyone has a great upcoming weekend and don't forget to leave your comment regarding the "Forest Magic" piece to be entered in to win the print!