What I Learned from my Bird Project: Rapid Recharge

That’s a lot of birds. Why geese or ducks? Why flamingos? Why this process?

I introduced you to the birds back in February, in the episode called “The Benefits of Side Adventures.” But now I have had time to finish, process it in my mind, and reflect on how to use this process in the future and how to use these birds in more of my work.

I will answer a lot of the why’s behind this project this week on the show. As they are assembled here it really is a LOT of birds.

Last year I did a 100 faces challenge in eight days and it was great but I saw where the limitations of zooming through and not having enough depth in the project. There was also not enough limitations.

Limitations help me to solve problems better, quicker, because if all the tools are at my disposal I will keep pushing pixels and trying to make it right.

This challenge I was working as a professor full time so I could not do 100 in eight days and keep my students going too. I decided to focus on birds and specifically geese. Although when you type goose into Pinterest or google, I think some ducks pop up. So yes some of these are ducks but I tried to illustrate geese.

I had a new process I wanted to try. I wanted to not give up even when it got hard. There were some days that I just had to have the drawing serve as the bird for the day.

It just happened to coincide with Genna Blackburn’s 75 Art Challenge which was making art for 75 days. She had prompts but I just needed the community. AND boy were these fellow creatives just what I was needing. I did not know anyone but made quite a few friends after this.

Before Genna’s challenge I was working on ostriches. They were really tall. And honestly didn’t fit in my envelope easily so I abandoned ostriches and came back to them later. I decided anything with a long neck I was going to work on. There are some rogue birds in there like the seagulls without long necks.

Well I am going to take you from start to finish and I hope my new document camera will be up and running. I would love to have you join me Wednesday, May 1 at 7:30pm GMT / 2:30pm ET / 11:30am PT / 8:30am in Hawaii.

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Episode 468 LIVE on Wednesday, May 1, 2024

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Transcript

[00:00:00] diane: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of Creative Ignite and today is, today is the first day of summer break for me. So I told, um, Terra, my best friend. I said, oh, it’s Summer art party. And somebody else I was talking to was like, Ooh, what’s the summer art party? I’m like, it’s what I’m doing with myself all summer.[00:00:30] 

[00:00:30] So I’m excited. It hasn’t been, uh, I haven’t, I. Completely wrapped everything up. That’s not art related, but I’ve got a good start and I’m wrapping some things up this week trying to take on less projects or no real projects this summer, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to say no to everybody, but little things are fine.

[00:00:53] Anyway, just rambling. But today we’re gonna talk about my birds. And I know I’ve talked about ’em before, [00:01:00] so this might not be completely, you are like, we’ve already seen these, what you know, but you’ve seen some of them, um, but you haven’t probably seen them all. And I did try to put them in order. I’m not sure if I was exactly, I should have.

[00:01:15] Here’s some things I learned that I should have done. I should have dated the back of them every day. I also will not be Blair witching you like Last time with my phone tethering, I actually got a document camera. So we’re [00:01:30] gonna try it out today and hopefully it’ll work. It is not very tall, like that’s the bottom, uh, you see.

[00:01:39] And I have it totally stretched to the max, but I’m thinking that I’ll be able to show it good enough. I hope you might just see, I try to do it so you don’t see the cord, you know? ’cause who wants to see the cord? Really? I guess I could probably put it up here maybe. And you could, I could stretch it a little bit [00:02:00] more.

[00:02:00] We’ll see. We’ll see how it goes. Now it looks like it’s gonna topple over. I don’t really have anything good to, but hey, we’re learning. It’s new. We’ll see. So why did I start this bird project? And if you’re like, I don’t know what you’re talking about, these birds. So I like to do things with my hands. I don’t want to only work on the computer.

[00:02:23] I don’t know if you’re like me. You know physics and art all at once. That’s right. If you’re like me, [00:02:30] sometimes I get tired of working only. Hey Maya, um, Maya’s in Norway. Um, I get tired of working completely digitally and although I have an iPad and I like my iPad and I use it as a tool, it’s not the only tool I use and I’m okay with that.

[00:02:47] One of my favorite tools is this, are you ready? You might wanna take a screenshot. It’s called scissors and I think we think differently when we’re cutting things out. So this has been a huge, [00:03:00] scissors has been a huge part of the way I think, and the way I can process. So it happened, I should have probably gotten this one, but one illustration project, I had a client who asked me to do a Christmas card, and she’s a doggy daycare.

[00:03:17] I mean, she runs a doggy daycare. She is not a doggy day, you know what I mean? Anyway, so she asked me to do like their logo, their dog of. The logo dog, but put him like in a Christmas [00:03:30] scene and I kept messing up. Wasn’t great at watercolors. This was probably 2014 maybe, I don’t know. I don’t remember when it was, but I decided, I was like, I’m not starting over again.

[00:03:41] I’m gonna cut this out. I’m gonna draw some more. I’m gonna cut some out and then I’m gonna layer it on top. And from then, that was a great process for me. ’cause it felt like with watercolor sometimes I feel like it can be very unforgiving. Maybe some people are like, watercolor’s super forgiving. And I’m like, [00:04:00] I don’t have that same idea.

[00:04:01] But I like watercolor and I use watercolor a lot, but I want something. So scissors and watercolor and some, uh, acid-free glue is like tape runner is my favorite. Those are some of my favorite tools. So I wanted to do birds. Um, if you don’t know, that’s the name of my company is Little Bird Communications.

[00:04:25] You know, I have a lot of birds, like I buy birds, like [00:04:30] there’s all kinds of bird art on my walls. Let’s see, this is Jane Houghton. I have three of her birds that are like this, which I absolutely love, and I just have ’em up with a 3M command strip, which it’s really nice. Anyway, so I like this, uh, building up using, um, my scissors, but I’ve always just done regular collage paper or you know, or paint in my own paper, but [00:05:00] specifically I’m painting a wreath or something and I’m painting the wreath and when I mess up, I just paint some more leaves and I put them on the wreath, or do you know what I mean?

[00:05:09] It wasn’t like I worked in this way. And so there’s this girl art with M, her name’s Emily. I think I should have probably had her name. I’ll put a link in the thing. But she has a channel on YouTube called Art with M and she does a lot of collage. Hers is different from mine. Um, but I like that she used, um, she [00:05:30] paints these papers now she paints more like what I was maybe doing with the first.

[00:05:36] I have the art. I should have just grabbed it. I’ll, um, have a picture and if you’re watching this later, maybe Chris can plop it up right here and it, it’ll be there. And if not, it’ll be, I’ll put a link in the show notes so it’ll, it’ll be there. It was really the first time, and I know it’s on my website somewhere, so I kind of feel bad that I didn’t bring it.

[00:05:58] Anyway, now you get to hear this stuff in my head. [00:06:00] Um, hey, Alan, Alan’s joining on his phone. Um, I think you’re my Alan, right? Alan, who’s one of my design babies. Um, so anyway, I am digressing, so I decided, I’m kind of gonna take that girl Emily’s, um, process. She paints it like she’s looking at something that she’s going to be.

[00:06:22] Putting together in her scene and she’s painting according to that, I didn’t do that. I actually started with a [00:06:30] palette, a color palette, and it’s, I had limited myself with a color palette before, which helps, but it probably wasn’t as limiting as I needed it to be. But pretty much I mixed my own. I buy these inks from, um, Birmingham inks, and I buy other inks, and I love using inks that are water soluble usually.

[00:06:50] Um, sometimes the inks are not, but anyway, whatever. But I decided I was going to do, um, work on, I. In [00:07:00] my watercolor sort of style painting on paper, but I wasn’t painting knowing which birds I was gonna do. I kind of came up with that later and I, oops. I did two sessions of this painting, and I’m sure I talked about this, but I filled, this was empty.

[00:07:17] And I filled it with all kinds of, and some I never used, like this piece never used, but I guess, well there’s a piece that I did use on top of it, but most of them, Jackson’s had enough. He’s [00:07:30] like, I’m done. Um, I’d like to go see a dad’s here ready to eat. And now of course I can’t get it in it back in anyway.

[00:07:37] There’s a bunch of in-between, so I tried to do it by color and so I had one palette and I would mix the colors so that I was gonna be having, they would all work together. Now, maybe I didn’t do it. Most of them, I painted a whole sheet. I didn’t do these little bits that I’m showing you, but most of them look more like this, where it all kind of ran together.

[00:07:59] There [00:08:00] was some white spots and I was using different brushes and different things and like, this has blue and the. Like the orange, but there’s like some really nice textures and I did pink and blue and browns. ’cause I knew I was gonna do, I ended up having to go back and do a little bit more browns and jack browns and stuff because I needed some more things that were white.

[00:08:28] Um, maybe even some blue [00:08:30] light, light light blue. But I didn’t, I had some that were blue that were like this. There is stuff here. I should use the document camera. I know. I’m sure. But, um, but most of the blues in the beginning were like this, full pages. They’re really nice. They made great backgrounds for like ones that I shot, but there was pink.

[00:08:51] There was red, there was, but I was trying to mix them. Um, they didn’t all work for sure, and I now know better, but [00:09:00] I now have a huge slew of things that actually work together. So, uh, this lady I learned from a couple summers ago. Hmm. She had a real weird last name, stipend or something. Now, of course, I can’t think of her.

[00:09:17] I’ll put it in the link. Anyway, she’s great. She talks about a mother color, which I had never heard of. Um, I don’t know if you know of a mother color, but it’s really, if you have a palette so that they all [00:09:30] work together, you drop a little bit of. You maybe mix all the colors together and that’s the mother, and then you drop a little bit in so that they all have a little bit of all the colors with them.

[00:09:40] Some people do different things. If it’s like you have pink and uh, blue, you might just do a little bit of the blue and everything, then everything will work together. The blue kind of acts as your mother color because you’re gonna mix it. Anyway, that’s how I did this part. I started in this, um, [00:10:00] Coty, um, paper sketchbook, which I was worried that was gonna be too precious because they’re so nice.

[00:10:08] These, this was the size that I got. I have a new one. They’re $20 at Jackson’s art supply. I don’t get any money from those people, but these, I love this and it has deckled edges and it’s really thick. So when I was doing pin or marker, it wasn’t going through. So that was one of the things that I literally [00:10:30] love.

[00:10:30] And they have different sizes. I love this co paper. I think it’s hand handmade paper in India and it’s, this was, these are the bigger ones. There has like maybe 40 pages, but it also comes in this size. Love both of them and really me, 10 years ago would still have this in all the packaging and would’ve never used it because it’s I think, really nice paper and I’m gonna share, ’cause I started, [00:11:00] um, drawing first I looked at some things and I’m gonna try this new share screen.

[00:11:08] Oh, I also wanted to tell you about, and I get nothing from this, but the Cornell lab of, or anthology, I probably showed you this on my phone. Um, maybe the, um, the Merlin, oops, the Merlin app. It’s kind of hard to see, but you can go outside and you hit [00:11:30] sound ID and all these birds come up. So today, let’s see what I got.

[00:11:35] Was this today? Yes, today. A Baltimore Balt. I said it funny. A Baltimore Oreo. So if I wanna go to where I was in that, I just click on this and then I hit play. I kind of hear it maybe. Anyway, this thing has been really fun and these people I did, did give ’em some money ’cause I really enjoy their free app.

[00:11:57] Um, but you can [00:12:00] actually go and you can watch them. Feeder watch look feeder watch.org. I’ll try to have a link in the other stuff. I guess these are birds mainly in my area. Purple Finch. I’m like, holy ’cause, oh, I can do this. Oh, the color is terrible, but, hmm. Look, I can zoom, but now I feel like it’s gonna fall anyway.

[00:12:25] This is very shiny. I kind of wish it wasn’t so shiny, but I’m trying to get it back to [00:12:30] normal. Okay, sorry. New, new, uh, equipment here, people, so at least it’s better than the Blair Witch Project I put you through last time. And I’m not sure why the light is so terrible, but I don’t know. I don’t know, whatever.

[00:12:47] Anyway, so this is my, this is my Kadi sketchbook that I’m gonna show you Now, the beautiful thing, I mean, these pa the paper is super thick. Those of you who are, [00:13:00] uh, listening, you can hear it, hear how thick one sheet is, and it’s this beautiful, I’m gonna have to try to move it up a little bit so you can see a little bit more.

[00:13:10] Sorry. You’re gonna have to deal with my, well then it’s just gonna be Blair Witch again, so I’m just gonna do it like this. Let’s see. It’s the best I can do. I’m sorry. So, Hmm. Now I have it angled weird. I did practice this before, [00:13:30] clearly not enough. Um, this was some stuff I did in Amar’s. Uh, she does a once a month thing with her group.

[00:13:39] And so look at that Deckled edge. Awesome. Really can’t see anybody saying anything. Y’all are like bored to tears. I see. Anyway, so I drew, uh, sometimes I draw when I’m at church and he was not talking about, uh, about ostriches at all. So, but so [00:14:00] you’re, what I decided to do is I went on Pinterest and I got a lot of the reason I was trying to have this thing in a certain way was so that this light wouldn’t cast this weird.

[00:14:13] But I need the light to give us light. Oh, well. So I decided to draw things first. What worked best was me drawing and then taking, ’cause I’m already, you know, messing things. Um, [00:14:30] this was a ostrich leg. I realized that the ostrich leg was about the same, uh, size as there. I think that was my first attempt.

[00:14:41] But this one didn’t make the cut. It’s still sticky though. Um, I decided to draw them first with just a couple like markers or some, um, pencil. And then I just, I tried to do this. Um, it is much nicer. Yes, I agree, [00:15:00] agree. Have seeing the, not the Blair Witch with my phone, that was pretty bad. Um. But I decided it was better that I’m already not being perfect here.

[00:15:12] But if I looked and I had this later on in the, the birds, I had it where you could tell the ones I was actually trying to look from a photograph on and do it from a photo, and it was just terrible. So I had seagulls I started with, and Alan asked me this last week, he’s like, [00:15:30] why ducks or goose or whatever, Hey Hannah.

[00:15:34] And I said, well, I started with ostriches because I like the long, they’re long necks. I just think they’re awkward and I’m pretty awkward. So, you know, it, it works. So, and maybe they’re a little unloved. So again, I don’t really have a drawing of this one, but I started with painting the paper and [00:16:00] maybe I.

[00:16:03] I don’t know if it’s gonna focus. Maybe I should just leave it down here and then just zoom ready. Let’s see if I can zoom. I think that’s as far as zoom as I gonna get, but this is just cut. This is really that paint paper. Um, and then this is just this darker, I have two markers, Ecoline Gray, and this is just me giving it a little bit of shading and I [00:16:30] did, I know you can’t see it, but there’s pencil.

[00:16:33] So, and like that is like a scrap. Um, it was something I’d cut, but I was like, oh, maybe I can make that into a beak. And I actually just really like how weird he is. I don’t love his, um, stuff down here. And I didn’t end up doing this anymore, so I ended up putting more texture and stuff in here. But they really have white feathers on the end.

[00:16:59] But. [00:17:00] Anyway. I really had fun. Let me see if I can go back. So this was the, I think the first one would’ve been great had I actually written, but think about, so when I did the measurements, his, his leg would, or her, I don’t know, I don’t know if they’re different colors. You know, the boys are prettier usually in birds.

[00:17:20] Um, only birds though. People, no, I’m just kidding. Um, anyway, so this is about the same link as the legs. [00:17:30] And I was like, oh yeah. I’m like, so I just did the bodies right the beginning. So I do have white ones to, so it’s a little bit easier to see, but I think of his name as Oscar, I think. Anyway, so I actually started with other ones with just me making it up.

[00:17:48] I didn’t like this. I didn’t like the hard, the really, I. Thick lines. Um, so that’s when I started doing them in the um, this was one of the first ones I took it [00:18:00] from. Um, you can kind of see it. And this paper is not perfectly white, which I also really like. Of course you can’t see it ’cause everything’s blown out.

[00:18:10] Lemme see if I dim my light. My favorite le Oh yeah, you can see it a little bit better. Jack. Just stop man. Might have to text John anyway. You can’t really see, but now it’s super dark, but I don’t know if it’s it better. Is this better? This is, I think it’s hot pressed. It does have a little bit of a [00:18:30] texture, but it’s not, um, very textured.

[00:18:32] That’s a good question, Maya. It’s definitely not super textured, like lots of, um, watercolor sketchbooks, but this was just kind of a weird shape and I just made it into a weirder shape. But I didn’t paint that on after it. That was just how it was. And then I just drew on the little beak and the eye. So I was getting more in the way that I liked.

[00:18:57] I didn’t like this one either. I thought he was [00:19:00] ugly. Just don’t tell him. But I didn’t like this process. So I started, before I started like the full 75 day challenge, I had done these and I was just trying to see can I get these and then just make draw on top? And that just wasn’t, wasn’t working. So I think I did him pretty early.

[00:19:20] I liked him, but I didn’t think it really went together. So then I was like, okay, I, there was a mother color, there’s a little bit of this brown here, but I was like, what can I do? Can I make [00:19:30] some things that are weird with. You know, so these are some of the very first ones and I didn’t end up really liking them.

[00:19:38] So, and this was one of the first ones is that was just how I cut it. And that’s, it’s just white paper. It’s not, it’s all one sheet. There’s nothing cut or pasted on this. Um, and then there’s a couple more, but those have additions. So, oh, and there’s that leg that I did early. Okay. So then after that first ostrich, I’ll [00:20:00] come back and I’m gonna show you some of these in a second, see if I can go back out.

[00:20:04] So then I did this one, so there’s Oscar. And so I kind of had ’em in a photo together and was adding some other elements. I’m not sure if this light is better, brighter. It’s kind of blowing it out. Let’s see if the little light on the camera helps. Nope, it doesn’t help. Okay. Well I’m still working that out people, so I was still using, some of it was like gelatos or something on top.[00:20:30] 

[00:20:30] Still didn’t really like it, but that was like one wing and then the other wing. And they’re really weird shaped birds, but, okay. And then I liked this one a little bit better. I actually think I did his head early. I did a whole bunch of heads and just had the heads and then, but I’m getting less gelato.

[00:20:50] Um, but I’m using the white part of the paper to be like that. I had left on the paper to instead of cutting like the [00:21:00] neck thing, I was using it like this. So I do like this one probably better, but I didn’t, I just drew the eyes on, I did try later to not draw the eyes, but actually, um. Here’s the one I did with legs and oh my gosh, this, I’m gonna just show it sideways because if I turn it this way, you’re not gonna be able to see it all because he doesn’t even fit or she, whatever, doesn’t even fit in my envelope.[00:21:30] 

[00:21:30] But I really like her head. I like that her beak is, um, not, you know, straight on. So she’s looking at me and then there’s some gold. Do you see the shimmer? Woo. So anyway, I just decided, can I make, you know, I cut more of the feathers out and then the legs are really the same length as. As her, and they did have [00:22:00] this painted color, but then I added a little bit of the blue and I added, and her leg got stuck so many times, and I’m not even sure if that is part of her leg, but it, anyway, she was, she’s nice, but can you imagine a sticker like that?

[00:22:14] Ooh. Should have been big. So here’s another one, A small one that I also decided to, wasn’t straight on and I added, the eyes are actually added on, so, well, you still can’t [00:22:30] really see, but you can, you can see I didn’t cut that. That’s just stuck on, on the other side. But it’s really just 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 pieces of paper, I think.

[00:22:44] Yeah. So not a lot. I was getting, you know, how can I do less? And then I started thinking about other birds that were. Had long necks and that maybe were white just [00:23:00] because I had so much paper that was in the white zone. And I had done his head also thinking he might could be a ostrich, but then I was like, Nope, key camia.

[00:23:12] I really need a dark, darker color. But he is in here somewhere. So I drew a bunch. This is 1 28 me Zoom out again. Sorry. Okay, so you can’t see everything. I end up making him, um, I still would like to [00:23:30] make him, but maybe he’s a little too, but this is. This guy. I know it’s not exact, but he’s running, you see his foot very similar.

[00:23:39] I added a little bit more leg. Um, and then I don’t know where that leg is, it’s somewhere. Um, but I decided, and I even colored it very similarly. Um, but I really liked his, and I do think he looks more like a duck or the Aflac duck. But I wanted to show you, so this, a lot of the [00:24:00] paper that I was using, let’s see if I can move this.

[00:24:03] Had, I would paint these really subtle textures and you’ll see this more in another duck goose later. Isn’t that funny? Duck, duck goose. Did y’all play that? Uh, maybe not. Uh, anyway, so, but I thought it would look like water. It’s really pink on this, but it’s not, it’s just white paper with this light, light, light blue.

[00:24:26] But I ended up using, um, it was like a [00:24:30] gray, um, piece that I’d kind of done something similar. Duck, duck, gray duck here. Yes. Yes. Okay. Um, but I did, uh, some of these, and so this was, obviously I didn’t ever use this, but I’m just taking a brush and going like this and making these kind of really subtle textures, which I still could use, go back and use.

[00:24:51] But, um, some of this, I went back, I’ll zoom, I don’t know if I have one more zoom or not, but a [00:25:00] lot of this is that Ecoline, this is stuff that was painted. I really like this little guy. Like I really liked him and I think I shot him on this. Except I hate when a brush leaves a hair, but I think I shot him on this for this sticker.

[00:25:21] Um, maybe it was like this, but, ’cause there’s this patch here anyway, um, but I really liked using [00:25:30] these kind of as the backgrounds, which I thought really were great and just orange and blue do great together, minus that big hair on this thing. Um, but I really think him just on white and showing him on this not so white paper, doesn’t do him justice, but you can see I was like not happy with his neck.

[00:25:51] I had to extend it. I had to really look, this is a lot of pieces of paper and this ended up, the excess [00:26:00] ends up being Marvin. One of my other things I created, um. It’s his teeth. ’cause I end up saving these things ’cause I’m really bad about, but this is kind of, this is one piece I think, and then, and you can see on the back, sometimes I’m using tape.

[00:26:18] It’s kind of hard because the glare, but there’s a good mini pieces of tape. But mostly I’m using like the tape runner, but. I do. He’s still probably one of my favorites, but it was based off of this, so I just want you to see I wasn’t, Hey, it [00:26:30] was just going one more zoom. I wasn’t, I, I actually started with some heads and I actually think that was a really good start for me, which, if you wanna try this, like get some beaks, cut some beaks, and then make a head that’s similar and I’ll show you some things I did later.

[00:26:47] But anyway, I made the sticker. If you want the sticker, I’ll send the sticker to you, but you have to send me an email, say, I want your stickers, and I’ll send them anywhere. And I haven’t sent Maya, you haven’t been lost. I [00:27:00] was waiting still for this one. Thing from Dick Blitz, but I think they’re not the derwin thing.

[00:27:06] So there are other, uh, geese here. And really, I just would go on, uh, and some of these were highlighters. Some of these are markers. I’m just trying to get the idea here. And then I would cut it looking at this, even though my proportions were off, I was trying to do a landscape. It doesn’t always work. So then here were some.

[00:27:28] I really thought the ostriches were [00:27:30] really neat and they had faces, but then I didn’t wanna have the whole body. I’d be like, had something bigger than me, but I still could probably make this one. I run outta room a lot anyway. Sometimes I’m doing things that aren’t even related. Um, but a lot of this is birds.

[00:27:46] I really struggled with their feet and I thought, well, this sort of looks like an umbrella upside down. And then my aunt really likes hangers, so I thought about making this whole thing with hangers and you know, I’m looking at other people’s arch sometimes. Usually, I mean [00:28:00] this, you probably think it’s so good.

[00:28:02] Diane, I’m sure you were looking. I’m sure I wasn’t. This is terrible. I was probably looking at a real photo of someone and then it looks like she’s got like. A big league chew, which is gum in there anyway, maybe I made like a monster here. I kind of like the monster, but I really liked this one’s eye. And I think I looked at this and there’s a documentary on YouTube, British documentary, so it’s awesome accent.

[00:28:25] Um, and I don’t know who this lady is. She was probably in a magazine. [00:28:30] I do think I made this guy, but he doesn’t look like this. But I was really struggling with feet a lot. And then my friend Amarus was like, nobody’s gonna see the feet. And I know it’s upside down. But look at this cool thing this camera can do.

[00:28:43] There’s a button on the side. Let’s see. Oh, a button on the side right here. Look. And now it’s not upside down, but I gotta go back to this ’cause it’ll be upside down sometimes when I’m drawing in front of the tv, I don’t. My cat’s on one side, I [00:29:00] have like, anyway, so then here are some more. Now obviously I’m continuing to go, but you’ll see this one.

[00:29:07] This ends up being a terrible one. I really hate this one. He shows up, he’s there. This one is there. This little egret comes up. ’cause I really liked it and I wrote, oh, I’ll just show you this way with our super cool Zoom. Barely. You can read it. It says head feet. I guess I didn’t wanna get confused on myself [00:29:30] later, but again, this I think was a flamingo.

[00:29:33] Um, maybe, yeah, I think it was because they had, they also have weird long necks. And when you see these coming up in a second, like you’ll be like, oh yeah, I totally recognize this one. I don’t think I ever did this one. Probably should have. I think this is another heron. Did I say eg. Grit. I didn’t mean, I meant heron.

[00:29:54] Sorry. Clearly this was one with wings, but I just gave up [00:30:00] and then I was looking through. Don’t think I can get, anyway. This book, I think I got. It’s so I can’t show you. It’s so big. I can’t even, I mean, it’s huge. Can you see my arm? Like it is as big as my arm. Sorry for the messy floor photo there. Anyway, now everything’s messed up, but Oh well, it’s fine.

[00:30:27] Anyway, I used this book and I would just [00:30:30] draw. Look at that. Cool. Ugly. I mean, I don’t think you’re ugly. A little bit ugly, but they had such amazing birds in this and it’s just all photos, Tim. I mean, look how big this book is compared to my hip. Anyway, I did go to Ollie’s, I don’t know if y’all have Ollie’s, but we have this place called Ollie’s and it’s really, they get, you get a lot of cheap books or inexpensive books.

[00:30:59] I [00:31:00] did use this and this has more like other kinds of book birds in there. I did use this some, but I didn’t use it very much. Um, and you’ll see why later. But anyway, so I think this was from, I wasn’t just using um, Pinterest, but that was from that book. That was from that book. Um, that was from that book.

[00:31:22] And I do end up doing him. I don’t know what kind of bird that was. And then I thought about doing something with [00:31:30] bird brain, like that phrase. I thought that would be good. But anyway, I didn’t ever, I need to turn it just a little, so, nope. Wrong way. There we go. Ooh, sorry. I do really like this one’s eye. I thought that was really good.

[00:31:51] But again, off the page, because I didn’t have enough. And then I was just thinking about patterns, things that I’m seeing. There was a duck [00:32:00] their feet. Um, and I draw birds a lot. Not that I think I’m good at drawing birds ’cause I actually don’t. But, um, even just these textures I think would be cool for patterns.

[00:32:12] This looks like I drew two saggy boobs of a lady, but the, and this is the tail feathers and this is a mallard duck. And this is just, anyway, I think that is, I did do a pelican, I’ll show you. I don’t know what this is. I don’t know what it was. [00:32:30] Um, I liked how this one was standing. And maybe that was my cat, I think was not happy with me.

[00:32:40] Um, this was like a piece of sculpture you can buy and I just thought, so I just drew it a couple different times. I liked how they were simplifying. Um, this is a bird I made up. This is a, I would see this like in woodpeckers and things, the texture. My dog, I hope you can’t hear him crying. [00:33:00] I thought that was a very awkward, um, pose.

[00:33:07] I drew this guy. It’s similar to the one I had. It’s like a simplification of the one I had drawn before. I’m just showing you again, more patterns that I think I could use. Flamingos, there’s really nothing on that. It’s just stuff from church. Um, this one was a flamingo that I did end up making. [00:33:30] This sticker?

[00:33:32] Well, I mean I made the art and then I made the sticker. And really, I just used one piece. I cut that background blue and then I put it on another background, which I think actually does pretty nice. And the fun fact is that flamingos are pink ’cause they eat shrimp and that when they’re moms or when they’re making nest or babies or whatever they’re doing, I’m not super bird, uh, [00:34:00] knowledgeable, but um, they go white, the moms go white.

[00:34:04] Anyway, I thought, okay, well here’s what other things could I use? And there was this one, like it was a fence and it was all this, I don’t know, it was like. Maybe it was organic material in the fence. Maybe it was hay or something. But this bird was kind of flying off with it and I thought that would be kinda neat.

[00:34:24] Some of these birds are terrible. I mean, but he’s funny. I was like, oh, that maybe [00:34:30] it’s the faces that I can do. And I thought, okay, well I really need something dark around this one. And oh my goodness, we got, so then there was this, this one duck goose thing. Whatever I wrote, I typed in goose always. And sometimes I guess it would come up with a duck and I just called it a goose.

[00:34:48] But they do kind of have different bills. And it was like on a doc or something like a, yeah, a dock up at the water. And this is how I was standing. And so I kind [00:35:00] of did this one a couple different ways. I thought he looked really awkward. I ended up doing this feather when I was like, I cannot do anything else.

[00:35:09] I redrew this one at church. I gave up tic Tacs for lint, and then I start drawing these really fat birds, and that was sand and that was water. Um, I do end up making this one, and I did make this one while my friend Anne was doing the, um, [00:35:30] she did our program review and while she was there, I just sat in the lobby of the dean’s office and cut.

[00:35:36] So I redrew this one bigger. This was somebody’s beak that didn’t work. I’m trying to figure out their feet. This is that, uh, squawking one. And it was really awkward. This is kind of that same one I’m just doing in a different way. I really liked his little head. This is, I think, from another piece of sculpture.

[00:35:56] Again, just shortening or. Making his [00:36:00] wings itty bitty tiny. Maybe that’s okay. Why do I like that? ’cause he looks cute. I didn’t ever do that one because I was actually trying to do consistent. This is me, I’m at my dad’s at this point, um, in the semester, and I’m showing the girl, he goes to the same place to eat lunch almost three times a week.

[00:36:20] And so, um, I was sharing my, uh, my tools and I was trying to, you know, like to get them to, and [00:36:30] she wrote her name Kariba. Anyways, she’s really nice. I did end up doing this one at my dad’s, and this is, it looks like I’ve drawn some sort of, I don’t know, but those are their legs coming together, which I thought were neat.

[00:36:47] And then we go to Cracker Barrel a lot. So I’m just drawing things that I see at Cracker Barrel, not super well, and I was like, mom, maybe that would be pretty easy to do. And I’d pull up my phone and I would draw. [00:37:00] That was a light at Cracker Barrel. Clearly this was not a Cracker Barrel, but that’s the salt and pepper and the gas lantern that I did terribly.

[00:37:08] Then I did chickens, which if you don’t know, I used to have chickens, but I had black ops, so they were black. Um, and I was doing this, I guess in church and I was probably looking at images or May, yeah, probably. Anyway, um, but I did this one and I do really like this one. And I did get this [00:37:30] one made into a sticker.

[00:37:33] And the fun fact is because my sister didn’t know this, she, when we got a hes, she said, well, how can you have, um. Eggs if you don’t have a rooster. And I was like, uh, Vicki, we don’t need, uh, we have eggs every month and we don’t need a rooster. Um, anyway, it says Hins don’t need roosters to lay eggs. And I really, I liked his [00:38:00] little eyes, which I’ll show you in a second.

[00:38:01] Anyway, so more trying. I was just, you know, what did I bring with me to church? Sometimes I did another rooster, another kind of rooster. This is another kind of hin, and something was wrong with this marker. Then I went rando and did this. No more chickens. Um, this one, he, you’ll end up seeing him and maybe that one, but in a different way.

[00:38:29] I know I [00:38:30] did him, and that’s someone else’s illustration. I should have written his name down, but or her name down. And then this is kind of my version of like simplifying the. And you end up seeing him. I did make, I did make, he’s probably one of my favorites. I just got the sticker, you know, sticker Mule has those deals, like $19 for 50 stickers or something.

[00:38:57] So I got him [00:39:00] on and I do think the backgrounds where I shot these helped. And, you know, their legs don’t always stay down, so it kind of created a little shadow and everybody was like, he’s dancing. And I do think it looks like he’s dancing. I guess it kind of looks like this is his other arm. But that was really just his chest.

[00:39:15] But that’s okay. We can, and then this one I ended up putting, this is cut paper taped in, um, just trying to draw different, different things. Some very simplification, [00:39:30] just trying to simplify earlier. This guy is probably from my head. It’s not very good. This is this, I think a tufted tit mouse, uh, bird. It’s supposed to be a cardinal.

[00:39:42] Um, that, oh, Beatrice Blue, Ashley Wolf, I love her seagull illustrations. So then she, there was somebody who just had a bunch kind of in a thing, and I, I’m like, well, why don’t I try to make some that are together? Because there was this one when I had those, um, [00:40:00] uh, ostriches, I would just lay the heads and I took some photos of those and it was kind of fun.

[00:40:08] So there was something. Then this is the other Amarillo. So this is a month later, we’re doing another Amarillo. Here’s a pelican, another pelican from a weird angle. You can see it upside down. And then two more pelicans. ’cause my friend Anne, her sister loves pelicans. Then I don’t, well, a little bird there and [00:40:30] nothing else.

[00:40:30] So then I finished this, this one, and I moved on to this one, which I will not buy this one again, this is Jackson’s art supply, and I always try. To have, um, I don’t even know why, what this, I’m gonna have to look at what that is. I don’t, I don’t know. I put notes for myself in here, but I try to tape in what the sketchbook is, especially if it’s, so, I do like that it lays flat, but as you’ll see, [00:41:00] the paper is too thin.

[00:41:02] Um, it’s, it’s just, you can see through, like you can see the things through it. And I didn’t do anything on this side, so I didn’t really love this. I did this, I was back at my dad’s at this point and my sister, so I ran outta room for his legs and I, so I put ’em to the side. This is so something that I stuck down.

[00:41:21] So this is a piece of paper. My sister, I took a picture of this and I know this is a duck for sure, and I drew it terrible. His body’s way too big for [00:41:30] his, uh, anyway, but it’s okay. I just gotta let it go. But I think the rooster or chicken looks pretty good actually. I mean, for what I was looking at and my sister’s like, well, I really like that flour next to the goose or duck or whatever.

[00:41:47] And I was like, do you have your glasses on? And she’s like, no. I was like, it’s a chicken. Anyway, I thought it was funny. So now I have this huge thing, so there’s just a few here. I said [00:42:00] Cracker Barrel with dad. Obviously that’s not a real bird, but I’m just trying to get some different angles and I think that that was really important.

[00:42:06] I tried to make tags so you could see this. You, you saw that one on the other. I’m gonna fly through these when I show you the real thing, but this one you’ll see in a little bit. Again, I’m kind of using the same tools. Um. And then I did a bunch that were these geese or ducks. This is um, at his drawing table.

[00:42:29] [00:42:30] This one’s jumping rope. You see the jump rope? Um, more feathers. I thought this would be a fun tree for, and then he’s hiking. I thought that would be fun. Um, this is the pickle monster, which you can also, these are all free. You just have to tell me you want them. I know some people, and that’s probably not good that I’m just giving them away, but I just think he’s funny.

[00:42:55] That’s where he came from. I don’t know what I drew, but I was like, wouldn’t that be funny? And this [00:43:00] is how I used the iPad. I took a picture of this and then I redrew it on the iPad. Okay. Um, there’s a really weird bird and I know people are like, oh my gosh, you got 15 minutes. I do like this bear in the, anyway, there was a challenge to, um.

[00:43:20] There’s a bunch of other things. I’m just trying to rework the creatives Ignite, uh, logo. And I was trying to do more scenes and so I was like, oh [00:43:30] yeah, you know, this kind of un inappropriate position. But I thought it was really funny. There’s some silver, uh, this kid sticks and then like, this is a, I was trying to only use certain colors ’cause that was the challenge of, another challenge was where I did that bear to use just a limited palette that was only the certain color green, a tan, a red and a gray maybe.

[00:43:54] I can’t remember. Anyway, I have more, uh, more weird ones here. [00:44:00] I do take notes in my sketchbook and they are not okay. This is the worst one, I think. Hilarious. That’s supposed to be a eagle. I know. It’s bad. That one’s okay. It was a blackbird. And those are my notes from Creative South. So now let me show you.

[00:44:19] My, my dad made my desk a long time ago. These are the notes for next week for Ryan Co. So I’m just gonna [00:44:30] show you these and maybe I’ll just put ’em on top of each other. So I think this is in the order. So again, I didn’t, didn’t write when I did this, but we have 15 minutes. I think I can fly through again.

[00:44:43] I started, this one, I started with, I don’t really wanna zoom too much, but I’m gonna zoom a little. Um, this was just the way it was painted. It had these white things just the way it was painted and I just added this, um, the [00:45:00] legs I did, but I started just with this long neck. This is just one piece and this is just one piece of paper.

[00:45:07] Let’s see, that’s just a piece of paper. That did happen to be where that line was, which I was like, oh my gosh, that’s great. I’m gonna zoom just once. And then I did, I was working pretty small. You can see how small these guys are. These would probably better if I had my blue. [00:45:30] Um, but then the colors weird, but whatever.

[00:45:34] Anyway, this is just two pieces. Um, man, the color’s just really blown out. Sorry. Then I did a seagull ’cause I needed to change a piece. So I’ve done ostriches, pretty much done ostriches. I did some of those ostriches later on, but this seagull was one of my favorites and I shot him [00:46:00] on a piece of, I actually think I shot him on this piece of little scrapbook paper like this.

[00:46:09] And then I made a sticker, right? But I think it was fine like this. But once I made it down smaller, I thought, I think it’s too much, it’s too busy. And I wish I hadn’t done that. So I did add the white, these are two other sheets of paper. There’s a little bit of a piece of [00:46:30] paper here, but the rest is just like the color that it was.

[00:46:33] It had blue in the paper, the paper color cut. Um, and I really like that little seagull made a sticker. Here is the flamingo head that I made that did you know they have teeth. It’s scary how many teeth they have. And I colored in things here, so I’m still figuring out. And it had this paint adds [00:47:00] some like shimmer.

[00:47:01] You can’t really see. I’ll have to work on this color. Getting the color right in the camera. I know. I need to go back out on the Zoom for this next one. Now this one I was, I did the next one from a photo and I stopped doing this after this one. So this is that paper that I painted and then I, um, with the wavy things, and then I added some darker colors down here.

[00:47:29] [00:47:30] But like, this is another piece of paper, paper. But I did start with the neck a lot. Um, I ended up having to add another sheet of paper. Um, this, the beak is always a sheet of paper, but I think I had to color the little white part. His feet are terrible. Oh. And coming off totally off. Don’t know. I don’t know.

[00:47:55] Whatever. It’s this one. I thought I’m way too tight. I. [00:48:00] I’m not gonna look at a photo anymore. I’m gonna go back and do only go from the drawings. So here’s a little seagull that I liked, but he didn’t ever get made into a sticker, which can’t, I think when I put him on blue. It’s too much for the camera. So Bye-Bye blue.

[00:48:17] So then there’s this one with a very weird position. He was like doing ballet, it looked like, and I don’t know what day we’re on, but I did this one probably closer to the o, [00:48:30] the ostriches, but I do, I will zoom on this one because there’s a, this is, I didn’t paint anything on this one. This is just how it is.

[00:48:41] So this is the only thing I painted was his eyeball. And so his, his neck, those e uh, herons have really long necks and I know he is not really the right color. But this, there’s 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Seven pieces of paper, [00:49:00] eight piece nine, nine pieces of paper, and it was just a lot of cutting with scissors. I’m not using an exacto.

[00:49:08] I think I only used an Exacto once. Do you remember the one that my sister was with next to the chicken? This is that one. It also got funny, big, weird at the bottom here, but, oh, well, and it’s, I don’t know. His head has some more texture on there. Then the, [00:49:30] so at this point I’m doing this, uh, 75 day challenge.

[00:49:34] I was like, well, I could do this. You paid $75, you got access to this community and the community. I had no idea it was new to these people, but they were very encouraging and some people just were trying to draw every day, and some of them weren’t great artists or you know, self-proclaimed not great artists.

[00:49:52] But then some were like, I. Self proclaim, not great artists. And they were coming up with some amazing things. They were just doing things [00:50:00] differently. Um, this one lady was awesome and she was cutting everything out of, uh, doing all of the out of cardboard, like her boxes. So this is one of the darker kind of browns that sort of has a purple tint to it.

[00:50:13] And I like again, that I’ve drawn it and I’ve already simplified it and I’m figuring out, you know, how to make this work. I just, I like to exaggerate the eyes. The eyes are not that small, but on this day now, whatever day this was in Jenna Blackburn’s, um, thing, it was cat [00:50:30] and my cat was sitting next to me.

[00:50:33] So I use the same paper. You can tell it’s the same paper, it’s the same, you know, it’s just a darker part. Now, three is black, but we’re going with brown here, and he has a white chest and white little feet. And so I made three. He is. My favorite cat right now. Um, Leroy’s just not very loving. I mean, he likes, he is fine, um, but [00:51:00] three is super soft.

[00:51:01] And he reminds me most of Nevin, who was my favorite. Favorite. All right. This is the one I made up. I don’t know if you remember him, but I said there’s one that’s I made up. That’s him. This was, I wanted, I had some red pieces of paper. I hadn’t made a flamingo yet. I’d made that big one with pink. Um, but I was like, okay, I’m just making up a bird.

[00:51:22] And I was like, well, he could have red wings. Now I really like this one. Now, Paul, this was because of you. Paul said to me, I don’t [00:51:30] know if Paul’s still here, but Paul said, oh yeah, he’s still here. So Paul said, Diane, why don’t you, and I love that Paul said this to me. I like when y’all tell me. You push me to do and Paul’s my friend, and Paul texts me, I’m cheering him on my birds or whatever, and he’s like, it would be great if you use real collage paper.

[00:51:48] And of course, I love this codi. I mean, I saved this, you know, the, the paper. And so I was like, okay, I’m gonna use the Codi paper for some of this. Now. I [00:52:00] don’t think this one works super well. I do really like it. I think I would probably try to do this again. I love the, um, the position. I think it’s really funny, but this is really receding and it needs to come forward.

[00:52:17] And so there’s some color, color theory stuff. So I realized that I need to play. But then the ones that I actually did iterate on, I did more of kind of the same one. I do feel like [00:52:30] it did better. It doesn’t look as bad right now, but this is. On top of this thing. And so I would just have liked to have done better.

[00:52:41] I did have to draw a little bit on this guy’s face and I don’t remember, I think that red thing is just from the, from some of the whatever, but I was getting a little bit better with their feet or just being okay with their feet being [00:53:00] weird. But I do really like the position. I think I overworked some things and then the next day or something, this now is February 11th, I started.

[00:53:13] You can kind of see a little bit. I did use tape some, which probably isn’t great, but I did these little guys together. They were both February 13th and I shot ’em together. I think I shot ’em like this, so it looked like they were like best friends or something. And he has a [00:53:30] little bit of the Cady paper.

[00:53:32] His, his legs not so great, but. I do, you know, I was, instead of using a piece of paper, I was just using the, uh, pen. Um, the marker thing three is a good cat. He’s the one that lays on me when I’m, but again, just starting with the next, or starting with the beaks was really helpful. Then that was February 13th.

[00:53:53] So then I made, I was at a point, I was like, I just gotta make up another bird, because I was about to leave, I [00:54:00] think, to go to my dad’s on the, on this day. So I’ve made this the same day as I made those little guys. Um, so because I have a eight hour drive to my dad, so then somebody in that group was like, oh, that’s a blah blah from New Zealand.

[00:54:15] And I was like, what? That’s a, from my head. But since it was Valentine’s Day, I gave him that. Then that, I don’t know if you remember this one in my sketchbook, but this was a little guy that was. Um, like [00:54:30] he was like a piece of sculpture and so he had really short little wings and, but I just thought he was cute and I made him my own.

[00:54:41] And then I decided, I’m at my dad’s at this point. This must be February 16th. And I made this one, which was, which ends up being this one, which color? It actually looks better color-wise. They look [00:55:00] more matchy. This, these, I got Anton. It’s, this is sticker print go.com. Um, and, but I really, these are a ton of little pieces of paper that I just.

[00:55:14] Taped on or glued on. And then the, their feet are their legs and he just had one leg down. I guess he had the other leg up. Um, I wasn’t really happy with his neck for a long time. And I did add some other, a little bit more texture. Then I’m still at my [00:55:30] dad’s. I’m using this, I think this started out a scrap of paper because it has a pattern on the back, but I really ends up, end up, uh, I mean this one took a while, but they’re the shadow.

[00:55:45] But I had painted part of it, but it’s really the underneath and that’s the one where these are his legs. Not that you can’t, I think you can tell if it’s his legs. Anyway, this was, this was pretty accurate to me. As accurate as Diane’s gonna get. [00:56:00] Here’s that one that’s squawking. I’m gonna just go a little bit faster.

[00:56:04] This is, ends up being, this is all just one piece. It, it had that yellow in it. I added the. The gray, but then the beak is just really long, kind of looks like a Warner Brothers chicken. I can’t remember that, that big, uh, he had a southern accent. That’s all I can think of. I do think I [00:56:30] use an exacto here for that little triangle, but everything else is just done with scissors, and I really did, I really did like that one.

[00:56:37] You may or may not remember, but in those geese, the, oops, this is one. I also, I didn’t like working this big, and I don’t have a date on this one. He may have been earlier, but I didn’t like, he has two different pieces for the beak. I don’t know it. Ugh. So then I [00:57:00] was working on, I don’t know if you remember this one, but I was like, okay, I need scenes.

[00:57:07] That’s the whole point was I was trying to do things that would give me something for scenes. Um, and I had this old scene that I had made and I’ve never done anything with. And it’s just, it’s literally you use these glue dot things that are acid free, lignin free. And I really like this kind of style. I don’t really think it’s resolved on here, but in the photo that day, I just [00:57:30] stuck him down.

[00:57:31] I was like, maybe I could use scenes like this. ’cause I really like scenes like this. Foghorn Leghorn. Yes. Thank you both for letting me know. Uh, Amy and Taylor, but I was like, maybe I can use some scenes. And so I did start working more in a scene. Rhythm, I guess. Um, where I was like, okay, I need to start putting these in because the, initially the goal was for me to make patterns.

[00:57:57] I thought Paul would be happy with this one, but [00:58:00] he didn’t really end up turning, not Paul, Paul’s good, but I didn’t feel like this guy was very strong. And so then I went back, I just started using my, um, paper again because I got pretty frustrated. His leg is terrible, but I really don’t like this paper.

[00:58:17] I had a lot of this paper. It felt too aggressive for me. I mean, it feels aggressive. Oh, I’m, oh, I knew I missed one. I think I’m outta order, but it doesn’t, this is the one when my friend Ann was [00:58:30] there, I cut him out. And glued him. When I was in this, this was collage paper, Paul. This was from some catalog and I guess his legs were, oh yeah, his legs are yellow.

[00:58:43] Anyway, I did this one. He didn’t take very long. He’s pretty much 1, 2, 3, 4 pieces of paper. I decided to use envelopes. Amy Lions, you’ll be happy. This is probably one of your envelopes. I love this one. He was in there. He is not colored this way in real [00:59:00] life. I was at my dad’s at this point and this is the feather.

[00:59:05] And my dad, I guess he didn’t have his glasses on. He thought it was a real feather. I was like, dad, the paint’s still wet, you know? Uh, so it might have made the thing a little bit funny, but I like that was the only feather I ended up making. Um, but that’s fine. And then I did this little guy, I think this was one of the last ones I did at my dad’s.

[00:59:25] Um, and he was a good mini pieces of paper. [00:59:30] Um, and I just have ’em on a. Walnut. I don’t know why. Maybe I saw that somewhere. Here’s a honking goose. I don’t need this piece. Somehow I’ve gotten outta order on my, anyway, just so we have a full thing. There’s the honking goose. This is, I really did like this paper.

[00:59:49] This paper had some dark areas, but it also had some really light areas, so there wasn’t a lot of additional, I did a couple of lines and that was the only [01:00:00] gray that I ended up drawing. Then there’s, this one went back to a really exaggerated the beak for sure. Um, and then I was like, I’ve gotta use some of these scraps now.

[01:00:14] I’d gotten home at this point pretty sure, and I was like, okay, this is Marvin. Now if you remember the big seagull that was flying. Well, anyway, I can’t hear it. No, [01:00:30] this one, some of these, I don’t know where, but like if I match these up, it would match with his teeth somewhere. I don’t know. They’re, they’ll, they would match somewhere.

[01:00:44] And so I was like, okay, I am going. And he has like a little chest hair and a little heart. ’cause he’s a friendly, but there is a bird. He has a bird on him and he is carrying a flower. And that’s Marvin the monster. I don’t really like his texture. [01:01:00] Um, but his arm is, you know, cut out. I didn’t, this isn’t one sheet of paper.

[01:01:08] And then I’m again, at this point I’ve gotta use these scraps. Like I had so much paper and I really needed to, um, to use some of the paper instead of going into my big stash. Thank you Hannah. Um, she said, I like how you add the little heart. Um. So this is a few pieces of paper. Again, starting with a [01:01:30] beak and then seeing where I can go.

[01:01:31] This probably was fashioned after a seagull, but I added the dots and I think this is just a, another piece of black paper that I just added on. ’cause some seagulls do have some. So as I’m trying to use my scraps, I go back, Oop, I am, I made another. I feel like if you just saw this, she’s got legs, she knows how to use them.

[01:01:58] Can you see her [01:02:00] walking down the street like that? Anyway, I know y’all are probably like, please don’t sing. Alan already knows I can’t sing. So I did cut out her eyes. Um, she was one of the heads that I had. I’m not sure if I had. That beak on her, but I decided she could be blue. And those legs, they really do have some weird legs.

[01:02:19] I better push you down so you’ll be in the thing. This is scraps. And what I mean by scraps is I would take, and you would be surprised when I taught my, uh, [01:02:30] thing at Creative South, I gave them a pile of these scraps, scrap pieces, this like gum container that I buy for John. I mean, I don’t buy gum. I buy him gum in this and then he gives me the containers.

[01:02:42] But like, what could you do with some of these? And there would, you know, sometimes it’s just you need to start with a part of it and it already looks like maybe that’s feathers or teeth like Marvin or you know, maybe there’s, maybe you see something, maybe it’s a [01:03:00] beak or maybe from that little scrap it looks like, you know, the part of a chicken or, I don’t know.

[01:03:08] I think stuff my sister’s calling me. That one stuck to me. But this is what I mean. I mean, I have these little scraps and I pull them out and I was like, Ooh, I see something. And obviously this head didn’t go with that neck, but I really thought it did. She probably thinks we’re done with Creative Ignite, but little does she [01:03:30] know I didn’t like this guy, but, oh well, you gotta keep moving.

[01:03:35] Here’s some other little scraps that I made. This little man, um, a whale. I really did like the whale and it’s really one. And then I added this other little piece so that his tail was more finished. And then I thought this looked like a polar bear. It’s a little bit hard to see, but then I drew a tail and it looks like I [01:04:00] drew a bum hole.

[01:04:02] Uh, not so good, but he has a little eye. I drew on and then I. Did cut out that his little black nose. And then I did some other ones that were not great like this. So I thought that sort of looked like a bird. Obviously these are like good for character studies, like I think like tailor you could use, you cut paper or see what you see.

[01:04:28] Obviously you’re not really gonna use [01:04:30] this as the only thing in a bird, a book or something, but maybe it sparks something and then you iterate on it, or That’s what I’m thinking. And so then again, I always have Paul in my head like use collage. So I go back and I did, I did this one. I, this was already made, I’d already made that head and it’s just drawn on eyes and I really do like.

[01:04:55] The, again, the soft, that ink I was using. And then I made it so that [01:05:00] this, I could slip it in. I hadn’t really committed to it, so I wasn’t glued. It had, I hadn’t glued it in. So the commitment wasn’t there yet. But that’s actually like her feather. No, I liked that one. I guess it could be a boy on the nest.

[01:05:15] And then there’s this one who you’ll also hopefully like Paul, somebody lost a leg. Anyway, I did use, um, something from a Nina paper sample, I believe. [01:05:30] Um, step Coleman’s work. No, I’ll write that down on this piece of paper. Steph, is Step a man or a woman? Oh, she probably Coleman Bird. I wrote it down. Um. I’m gonna check it out.

[01:05:51] Thank you, Taylor. Oh, you gave me a off. Off. Awesome. So I did use the, the line I drew in [01:06:00] there and then I made the legs also have that, but that’s still some of, I have these, some of these big sheets of paper. This is some of that Cady paper. Now my sister-in-law’s calling me Anyway. Pelican don’t think this is the leg that just came off, so I don’t know where that went.

[01:06:16] Maybe there he was on like a log and it was at a weird angle. Um, again, I just found, if I found something, this is one piece that I just colored this part [01:06:30] because I thought this looks like a fox or something. And he has sparkles. Woo. And then my, um, husband’s best friend sends him a text message and says, we have an eagle at.

[01:06:48] I’m gonna try to take a picture for Diane and John comes up to me, he’s like, I don’t know why he said that. And I was like, I do, because I posted this today and clearly [01:07:00] Steve thought that I needed help knowing that Chicken eagle fat heavy eagle does not look like this. And I know it doesn’t. I just think it’s funny now it, I mean, it was even bigger than this.

[01:07:12] He had like a bigger belly, but it’s funny and you gotta laugh. And here are some of the ones. So this one again, with that paper that I don’t like, but he’s, okay. This is one sheet of paper, one. 2, 3, 4. Four is just [01:07:30] the beak and the legs, but all the rest is one piece of paper. I just didn’t, and I didn’t even add any gray except here.

[01:07:36] And maybe on that wing there. And then I decided I can do an eagle and I know it’s going wrong. I’m so sorry. And so here’s the eagle that I did that was a little better, that I did out of one of those books. But I was looking at a golden eagle at Auburn. We had a golden eagle, um, when I was there. His name was Tiger.

[01:07:57] I know we have some issues there. And this [01:08:00] is mountains, but this is what I mean. Like some of the paper was so neat. Yes. Wore eagle, Amy. Um, but, and he had his, this claw was up and the other one was down. And it was better. I did better proportionally, but it was, I was making up the white stuff ’cause I didn’t, I do really like the little chicken.

[01:08:21] Again, this is always scraps. So to me she’s. She’s cute. She had a lot of pieces of paper, actually. So [01:08:30] this is March 10th. I don’t know what that is. Oh, maybe it’s part of her head. I don’t know. Sometimes I stuck things on the backside so that it would, and then somebody was like, is that a real feather? And I was like, yes, is a feather I found in my yard.

[01:08:47] Yard. This is just one piece. I thought it was a scrap. I thought it looked like a, I don’t know if I can get any. Here we go. I thought it looked like a whale. So I wailed it up. See? Can I [01:09:00] think my camera? But that’s a, and I broke the thing because it was really curved and I thought, oh, that’s like his, you know his water.

[01:09:11] Anyway. And then that image of the. I am again using scrap. So you know, if I was cutting this I would’ve made more, but I was just showing you, this is what the paper looks like. It’s just all you know. But I could crop it and that’s that [01:09:30] inappropriate angle,

[01:09:35] kids. Okay, here’s the, this another I, the paper I don’t like because I think it’s too aggressive. Um, but made with scraps. This is the one I hate even worse than the Fat Eagle. It looks like I’m trying to give him like a six pack, right? I, what in the heck was I? Do it again. I don’t love the paper. A lot of little cuts though.

[01:09:59] [01:10:00] I don’t really like this next one, but it’s okay. Um. Got some water damage. It’s a really big head compared to the body, but maybe that’s okay. It kind of looks like she’s gotta go to the bathroom and her legs are crossed. And then I don’t remember what some sort of rin, but I added more drawing on this one, which I kind of wish I hadn’t.

[01:10:23] But all of these are like, it’s based off of one piece, but then I added on, so [01:10:30] this little piece is a bunch of ADD-ons. These are add-ons. And these are different sheets of paper? Yeah. 1, 2, 3. Yeah, four different feathers. I guess five if you, and then I kept thinking about Paul and used collage. So then I had these, you know, on it’s like a diamond shape or a football sort of shape.

[01:10:53] So I just cut it and made the. Feet. That, and then again, ’em adding a little bit of extra [01:11:00] in there. And then, I don’t know if you know, but some people think that Cardinals are like, um, somebody, you know, my mom died, so then I made a cardinal and then this is one sheet, this is another. And then I think I just too much, oh, looks, maybe that part’s okay.

[01:11:17] But like their hair is more funny here. Oh, well then I made, I do like these chickens, so that really looks like my black ops my favorite one. Um, and one of them [01:11:30] live to be 13, so chickens can live a long time. They don’t produce eggs all that long though. Um, but I liked the, this paper I was okay with.

[01:11:40] It’s kind of aggressive, but it worked with him. I do wish I hadn’t drawn on that little, I don’t know, waddle or whatever it is. These are more, this is like, I don’t know if you could see it, but there’s a. It’s like the water and then a pile on or whatever. [01:12:00] And then I drew some, you can’t see it, but I drew some, you know, the top of the wood.

[01:12:06] And that was just what that sheet of paper looked like. I might have cut in a little bit more to give ’em a little bit more on a beak, but, and obviously it drew in the wing. We’re almost done. We have two more three. This the third, last one. Now I added collage. This is an envelope which I really do like him, and this is kind of a weird angle.

[01:12:28] This is the one that was [01:12:30] standing on the pier or the, the dock. Um, and it did, I mean, this was really a weird shape and it was darker. So I used that Coty paper and I painted on it. Then I did some really big sketches with some geese that were, um, look like they were looking in, you know, on something. So then I just, I didn’t ever make him legs, but.

[01:12:54] He wasn’t, the goose I was drawing from wasn’t black, but I had this black [01:13:00] paper, which I thought was really nice. And I just, I liked some of the texture that was happening and, yeah. Yeah. And then this is the last one. I don’t know if this is the last one I did actually, but it is the last one that I’m gonna show you.

[01:13:16] It’s a scene, so I, again, I’m trying to do scenes. I think this was just a bird. I don’t remember what kind, I kind of probably made a lot of it up. But this is like something from some, it looks like [01:13:30] there’s ovals, but then do you also see the hs? Like, I think it was the Hilton or something. Maybe. But I really, you know, the, the leaves are pretty still flexible.

[01:13:43] Um, and the paper I painted in the background. But here’s the other thing I want to show you. I think that I’m gonna move this outta the way and I drop one. So I think you can make things out of, [01:14:00] this was just one piece of paper and it already had this color. Let’s see, it already had, oh, whoa, is it gonna topple over?

[01:14:11] Sorry about that. Um, so you can see that this was just how it was cut, but I was like, okay, this totally looks like a bird. I might have had to. Curve this a little bit more maybe or something, but I haven’t made a bird out of this, but this will be a bird. And this one, [01:14:30] it was like this piece, oops, sorry.

[01:14:33] This piece. And I thought it looked like ponytail. And then I added this. I added a lot of birds have these mask things. So I did that. There’s, this ends up being 1, 2, 3. ’cause I thought, well this could be the neck again. So I’m just starting with the neck and then see what else I can make because that’s where we gotta go.

[01:14:54] We gotta start somewhere. I’m gonna stop my share. Thank you guys for staying this whole time. Thank you for [01:15:00] watching. If you’re watching on YouTube or you’re listening on SoundCloud or Apple or wherever you’re getting your podcasts today, probably would’ve been a good way to watch. Probably should have said that in the beginning.

[01:15:12] Um, what I learned was I. I didn’t give up on the process, so I stayed with the same palette and I stayed generally with the same kind of, um, birds. I needed some flexibility on birds. I also needed, I now can draw a goose [01:15:30] slash duck pretty much from memory and that was really helpful at the end when I have these pieces left that now I can do something with because I’ve studied them.

[01:15:42] So I probably, it was probably three months that I was working on birds and I think now I still may work on birds. What I thought I was gonna be able to do is scan these in and use these in patterns. I don’t think that I’ll be able to do that. [01:16:00] Um, but that’s okay. I am. Happy that I learned and I’m happy that I’m pushing to the next place.

[01:16:09] But for me, the process was really important to have some more limitations than I usually had. So I was using the color palette. Uh, I was trying to do the same kind of birds. Birds that had long necks or, and then I went rogue a few days, but, and the seagulls, I did a lot of seagulls, but those were still sort of those white [01:16:30] birds with a little bit of gray.

[01:16:32] Um, and now I need some scenes. So I feel good about the birds. But was this the end? No, I think, I mean, I don’t know if I’ll do a ton more birds just in another three months. I might get really sick of birds, but, ’cause I gotta get back to my beavers. Right. Um, and I will, I’ll get back to the beavers, but I am ready to create some things that could go on [01:17:00] patterns, but also maybe it’s opened my head up to thinking about.

[01:17:05] Um, how can I use the birds that I do have in something so it, could I do something with licensing with some of those? Could they be in the, um, uh, a scene on their own? Like maybe I go back to just making the ostriches with necks and there’s a little bit, so we know that it’s an ostrich, but maybe there’s enough.

[01:17:27] So I have a lot of different, uh, [01:17:30] avenues to go. And I think what I liked about this is that I gave myself time to use scissors. I work better cutting things out and feeling like I can layer up. And then if it’s a little scrap, you know what, I can put it in here and see if I see something one day. But it’s kind of like, these are like the blobs.

[01:17:50] They give me a place to start. Um, and it’s not a lot, there are not a lot of people that, I mean, there are people, absolutely there are people that [01:18:00] use collage, but if you’re a traditional drawer. Like I usually am. It’s really nice to break out. You just realize that you think differently and that you can layer things up is really nice.

[01:18:13] I do think you maybe can’t see it as well if it’s a print. So those are some of the challenges that I have to figure out, um, how to do in the future. But I did make fun little stickers on my phone, so if you send me a text and tell me which bird you want a [01:18:30] sticker with, you know, like a sticker. Anyway, I’m gonna, um, try to do something with those two.

[01:18:35] ’cause they were just fun. But the texture’s fun. I will keep working. Um, I have the whole summer art party, so stay tuned. We’ll do another rapid recharge about some of this stuff. But next week we start back to the series of inspiration with Ryan Co. And. I can’t wait for you to see her art and who has inspired her art.

[01:18:58] And then we have [01:19:00] Marius Valdez, um, the week after the 15th. So the 15th I’m taking off and then the 22nd will be Marius and the 29th is Damien. And then we go to a new series in June. So thank you for sticking around for an hour and 21 minutes. And if you were here longer, I really appreciate it. Um, anyway, it was great.

[01:19:24] And if you want some stickers, just send me an email, um, diane [01:19:30] creatives ignite.com and I’ll with your address and I’ll plop some in the mail for you. And I hope you have a great day. And if you are on YouTube, you can always comment. Would love that. I love, that’s how I got to meet, um, Maya. So thank you for Maya for commenting and I.

[01:19:47] Anyway, and love on designers. I’m just giving up on the, uh, durwin ink tents pencils that I was gonna include. They just don’t have a day when they’re coming, so I, they said April [01:20:00] 27th and it didn’t come. So I’m getting those in the mail this week and I will have a link so you guys can see what everybody got and maybe try out some new tools for yourself.

[01:20:10] Anyway, thank you. And, um, I just appreciate you being here. It’s hard to do this kind of alone, so I know, Amy, I’m not alone, but I, I appreciate all of y’all coming and sticking around and just appreciate you being interested in. A process that maybe is a process you don’t normally [01:20:30] do. I hope you try. I hope you get your scissors out.

[01:20:33] Bye.