Earth Bird

 

 

 

Another 'new to me' bird has arrived in my studio.  Around here he's known as the "Earth Bird".  He is covered in 'earth shaded' feathers. 

Sitting here in squelching heat and humidity this bird decided to skip Summer and go directly to Fall.

Wish it was that easy, don't you? 

Again I thank Doreen Frost for this design. She has certainly kept my fingers and punch needle busy!!

"I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn." - Henry David Thoreau



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"Rusty Toed Flutterby"

Look what appeared in my neighborhood recently.  Yes, its the elusive Rusty Toed Flutterby.  As far as I know, this is the only known sighting of this rare (and probably endangered) bird.

As unlikely as it may seem, this specimen seemed quite friendly.  I even invited her in for tea and she accepted.  I was able to snap this picture when she wasn't looking.

She told me that she is in search of other members of her clan and I promised to be on the look out.  Hope you'll help her by keeping your eyes open also.  Who knows what our bird watching will bring.

"Most discoveries even today are a combination of serendipity and of searching." - Siddhartha Mukherjee

Finding My Wings?

Prior to our trip out west I made up three 'Quietude' dolls.  I needed to create calm and peace as we made all of our reservations and went through the whole thing of getting ready to be out of town for two weeks.  I definitely needed a bit of serenity in my life.
  

My idea after getting home was to complete at least two more and then perhaps something else would pop into my head.  That completion project died a quick death as I fumbled around trying to find embellishments that would work and getting less and less interested each day.

While out on the desert we saw birds that we don't see here -- lots of them.  Magpies, which have a bad reputation but I love seeing them soar.  Quail are all over and always busily walking their grounds.  Just as perky and cute as can be.  

Then I came home to all the birds we have here.  And the thought came over me that perhaps I might make up some cloth birds.  Uh-oh -- the moment that thought came to me, my mind started churning with ideas: shabby chic? muted and mild? embellishments? shape? printed fabric or plain or both? eyes? standing or hanging or sitting - or all three????

And so I'll lift my wings and see what fun I can have.  Perhaps my summer will be completely devoted to bird watching.

"It's impossible to explain creativity.  It's like asking a bird, 'How do you fly?'" - Eric Jerome Dickey

"Most" Unlikely

"Where did you come from and what are you doing here?"  That's what I asked the Most Unlikely visitor to our dining room.  There she sat, big as life, atop the resident metal bird.

"I am going to fly on this big bird and he's going to take me way up in the air."  She sounded awfully confident.  Unfortunately I had to 'burst her bubble' telling her that her dream was 'most' unlikely considering this bird can't fly -- it is metal and really and truly has no wings except these etched in metal.

She seemed to take it pretty well.  I believe these "unlikely's" are used to hearing why they can't do something.  Soon enough she perked up and asked me "do you have a canary or a parakeet handy?"

"The moment when you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever being able to do it." - Peter Pan

Birds of a Feather

My two colorful birds have taken flight.  Each of them looking quite perky in their pastel feathers.

In order to get a little variety in textures I worked the background of these punchneedle pieces in reverse punchneedle.  I'm not sure that I like it -- but there you are, I'm never one to go back and redo a whole piece.

I loved working with these colors and the theme was quite light almost as if I were myself, taking flight.

"The sound of birds stops the noise in my mind." - Carly Simon

An Ode to Whimsy

As I recently started back into punchneedle I realized that something was missing from my work.  So I started to explore a little whimsy -- fanciful designs -- fun, bright, light colors.  This little bird design popped up ready to be colored with tiny loops and thread.

What colors would I use?  What combinations?  Out came my stash of Wildflower threads from Caron.  The color combinations in these thread skeins are always a wonder to me.  I can stand and look at them, hung up in the store, forever - except that the store has certain hours and eventually I would be thrown out.

With the choice of "Painted Desert" in hand I began to add some DMC floss in colors to match. Bright colors, fun colors, whimsical colors.

I leave you with the quote below - because I believe it will become my daily motto over the next few months. 

"Today was good

Today was fun

Tomorrow is another one."

Dr. Seuss

Birds of a Feather

 

Three birds, transformed from paper to stitchery. 

Each one exhibits a slightly different body type while keeping the same 'sketchbook' color scheme.

The designs are simple, based upon designs created many, many years ago by people who lived surrounded by these birds, the open sky and hand hewn rock homes. 

Creating something, out of nothing, is a joy that never ends.

 "The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who...looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space...on the infinite highway of the air." - Wilbur Wright

Symbols

In my creative life I find myself drawn to symbols - some of them over and over.


Here are my 'most used' symbols:

Bells, stars, the moon, birds, circles, dots, spirals, letters, music, metal, time.  I'm sure there are many others -- but these are the ones that usually end up in my work no matter whether I'm beading, punching or doll making.  These symbols represent comfort and joy.  They put the world to rights for me.  I never get tired of them and often read multiple meanings into them.

Here's the official definition for the word 'symbol'.

sym·bol - ( n.)

1. Something that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention, especially a material object used to represent something invisible.

 

2. A printed or written sign used to represent an operation, element, quantity, quality, or relation, as in mathematics or music.

 

How about you -- do you find recurrent symbols appearing in your work?  I know that many of you have some of the same symbols list that I do, because I see these same symbols in the work I love to look at.
 

 

Isn't it wonderful to have a treasure trove of images flitting through your mind -- images that please you, bring you peace and make you want to flaunt them in your handwork?

"We are symbols, and inhabit symbols." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

"Leaving the Nest"

Leaving the nest of punchneedle I have wandered quite haphazardly back into needle and thread stitchery.  Celebrating this marvelous spring has been my motto for this three-part hanging.  Simple scenes of birds and nests, feathers and eggs have developed from a special piece of patterned fabric that I found waiting for me at the fabric shop.  Who could resist this beautiful bird? 

Blue spotted eggs which have been sitting here on my desk for a couple of years have finally found their nest.

This little metal bird has also sitting here for a long time awaiting his very own nest.

These pictures are taken prior to my putting them all together in a row, one below the other one.

"I look out of this window and I think this is a cosmos, this is a huge creation, this is one small corner of it.  The trees and birds and everything else and I'm part of it.  I didn't ask to be put here, I've been lucky in finding myself here." - Morris West

Swamp Fever

Don’t you love it when you take a vacation (long or short) that involves sights you don’t usually see? The joy of driving over to Charleston is that we get to explore worlds that we don’t have here at home.

                                                                  Photo by Tom Baugh

Our first stop on this recent trip was the Audubon Swamp Perserve. This swamp area is part of the original Magnolia Plantation lands. That plantation’s crop was rice and the wetlands served as a perfect growing place.  Today it is a preserve for all manner of wildlife. We were so very fortunate because both the egrets and the herons were breeding and the rookery was filled with these beautiful birds. They would swoop up into the air and then settle down in the trees.

                                                                    Photo by Tom Baugh

The egrets were my favorites because their beautiful, white, fluffy feathers just captured my imagination. What would it be like to crawl onto the back of one of these majestic birds and hitch a ride, nestling down into their white, fluffy feathers? I wish I could know.

There was a thick carpet of bright green duckweed coating many of the surfaces of the swamp. It was so dense and smooth that it looked like a floor of bright green linoleum that you could easily walk upon and never get wet. Of course we weren’t allowed to test that theory.

When I saw this stand of trees with lines and shadows running across the top of the duckweed, my imagination took over. Do you think one day I might translate this picture into punchneedle? I think I might try!

This log, seemingly wrapped with vines (or whatever) made me think texture and sculpture. How I would love to have this in my yard so that I could study its turns and twists and intricacies.

"In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous". - Aristotle