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!

Kickin' Around South Florida

I had a great time jaunting around South Florida this week with Phoebe. We packed a ton of stuff into a week that left us both exhausted and ready for some non-travel time. I love when friends come to visit as I get to take them to all my favorite places and experience new ones along the way. This time, Phoebe and I went to Key West, my first time there since moving to Florida nearly 15 years ago. It was bigger than I expected and really crowded. Still, there was tons to see and do and of course, a few Key Lime Pies to try!
I wish I had time to process all my pictures and share them but there are just too many and the Superbowl is today! So, here are just a few of my favorite images from my week with Phoebe, all taken with the iPhone (my DSLR images will have to wait until I have time to process them) and starting with our weekend jaunt to Sanibel:

 Golden Path

 Keep Off

 Little Shell Collector

 Pippi Longstocking goes Fishing

Sand Dollar

Beach Tree

I logged 5 new birds on our visit to Sanibel and I wasn't even birding! We were staying at Seaside Inn and there on the beach were a flock of seabirds. In this one flock I got a Sanderling, Sandwich Tern, Forester Tern and Black Skimmer. The next morning, I went out to capture the sunrise and got a Great Black-backed Gull. I took Phoebe to all my favorite places, The Island Cow, the Bubble Room, Captiva, Ding Darling, my favorite antique store and even the lighthouse. We even did some shelling and found some awesome treasures which included pieces of coral, unique shells and even a sand dollar! My favorite moments were watching the flock of seabirds take off and a little interaction I had with a crab. Sanibel is always magical and I can't wait to be back there in March with both Lita (for more birding) and Luke who will be down for a visit.

Birds of Sanibel

Crabby Encounter

After a weekend in Sanibel, we had a nature-filled day at Butterfly World and Green Cay Wetlands:

 Black with a Hint of Yellow

 Rope Bridge

 Stop and Smell the Roses

The Wetlands

Now, it was time to take a road trip to Key West, stopping on various Keys along the way. We ate lunch in Key Largo, walked the small strip of beach on Marathon and spotted a Key Deer on No Name Key. We spent the first afternoon in Key West on Mallory Square and I watched the Cat Man perform with his amazing kitties while waiting for the sunset which was accompanied by ships, birds, biplanes and an F-16 flyby.  The next day we enjoyed breakfast at the famous Blue Heaven before walking all over old town until our legs and feet were screaming at us to end the day. The best part for me were all the cats we met at Hemingway's house and all the chickens running around town. Before heading out our last morning, we visited the Audubon House and did a little shopping. It was a wonderful getaway to a colorful and fun area of Florida. On the way back we stopped and walked the old seven mile bridge on Pigeon Key and had lunch on Islamorada.

Sunset on Key West

 Rooster & Cat

 Discards

Strong Jaw

 Starfish Cottage

 Colors of Key West

A Little Country

Sailin' Away

Where the Stories Happen

Our last day together was spent enjoying a yummy lunch on Marco Island before exploring a bit of the Everglades near Fakahatchee Stand where we saw the smallest post office in the USA, a huge gator sunbathing on a rock, a nesting bald eagle and a snake skeleton which greeted us before we started on a trail that made us a bit uneasy, what with gators, Burmese pythons and skunk apes on the loose. ;-)

 Ochopee Post Office, the smallest in the USA

 Boardwalk at Fakahatchee

Snake Skeleton

I managed to keep on shooting sunrises for a fifth week, adding in two from Key West, as well as two sunsets. The sunrises are getting earlier so as long as I naturally wake up before the sun is up, I'll continue to capture them. ;-)

Sunrises & Sunsets, Week 5

This week will be devoted to getting my "pay-it-forward" packages out as well as working on my next assignment for Carla Sonheim's Year of the Giraffe class. This month is all about mixed media. I'm so excited with this assignment. I will share my pieces here on my blog when they are finished!

Hope everyone has a wonderful week! See you soon!

Week 2 in Creativity

This week I began my Year of the Giraffe online class with Carla Sonheim. This month it's all about drawing the giraffe. Giraffes are so cute! I dug through my pile of unused journals and found a nice handmade one with a cover that seems suited for all the giraffes that will live inside of it. Eventually, I can go back and add watercolor to all of the drawings but for now, I'm just doing various drawing exercises and my goal this month is to draw as many different giraffes as I can. Here are some practice pages I've done this week, in a collage form because I'm currently obsessed with making collages:

Drawing the Giraffe

This week I worked on blind contour drawings, drawing with the wrong hand and gesture drawings. Next week will be all about realistic drawing of the giraffe!

I'm still recovering from the flu with a lingering cough and some plugged sinuses but I was able to have a Creative Saturday with my friend Cynde who had the flu over Christmas. We figured she was safe to hang out with me in my art room. We worked on making our own Spirit Cards...these are cards that have words to encourage the spirit such as Healing, Dreams, Hope, Faith, Learning, Love etc...My cards are going to be themed with birds and the words are based on the myths and legends that each bird is associated with. I worked on The Blackbird first, which is a bird of Prophecy, so my word for the card is DREAMS. Just like a regular deck of cards, the backs are all the same. That is going to be time consuming because I chose to design this as my back:

Birdy Love

Here is the front of the Blackbird card:

i giorni della merla means The Blackbird Days which are the last two

days of January and the first few days of February. I put the saying on the card because I loved it, but I depicted the Blackbird at night since it is associated with prophecy and dreams. :-)

Here is an artistic shot taken with the Hipstamatic using my newest lens/film obsession:, the Tinto 1884 lens and the C-type Plate film:

Dreams

Cynde worked on a teacup design Spirit Card with the word "healing". After working for a few hours in the morning, we had some healing comfort food trying a new restaurant in town that has grilled cheese as it's main theme...yum, grilled cheese!

Adam Good Bar & Grill'd restaurant. The menus were attached to old album covers! How cool is that as a way to reuse and recycle? Pretty darn cool! And the food was damn good too! :-)

Some damn good grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch!

Finally, Cynde and I headed to Barnes and Noble for some dessert and some inspiration. I ended up getting a cute new journal to record my birdy sightings, as well as Carla's new book "How to Draw Imaginary Creatures". I already have her Drawing Lab book so this will be a perfect companion piece! I also found that one of the blogs I follow Creative Thursday has a book out! So of course, I had to get that too. Throw in my favorite painting magazine from Britain, Leisure Painter as well as a bird magazine and I'm good to go!

Creative Inspirations

I continued to process images from my archives. I feel like I'm making a dent, deleting more than I am processing which is a good thing since I'm almost out of room on my laptop!

I can't wait to be at the beach again...just one more week and then a birding getaway with Lita!

And finally, I continued getting up early enough to take pictures of the sunrise. This week had some pretty dramatic skies so missing out on extra sleep was totally worth it!

Sunrises, Week 2

This week there won't be anytime to be creative as home improvement projects are taking the front seat. I will however finally be on my first birding outing of the new year so I am definitely looking forward to that. I just hope I keep the flu from coming back! 

Have a wonderfully creative week dear friends!

Week One, 2013

As the first week of January comes to a close I am still battling the flu, although I am beginning to feel better. I managed to just barely make the sunrise this morning, one minute to spare, after waking suddenly from a dream where I was serving Sudafed at a dinner party:

Sunrise 1.6.2013

I made this little collage of the first week of sunrises on my iPad with an app called Insta-collage:

It makes me happy to look at it. These were the bright spots (no pun intended!) during my week of gloomy sickness. And it reminds me how amazing my little iPhone can be and how much fun and easy it is to process on the iPad. Since I've been down and out with the flu I have indulged in an amazing iPad game called The Room. It was rated the top game of 2012 and I highly recommend it if you have an iPad. It is gloriously beautiful with a touch of mystery and magic:

There is nothing creative on the agenda today. Just a lazy Sunday with football and naps.

Hopefully this upcoming week Charlie and I will both be on the mend and the creative energy will once again freely flow! And I hope to share another beautiful week of sunrises!

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