What the...?

This showed up on the security camera today. I think it's a female cardinal looking for nesting
places (the camera looks like a tree with a hole in it). Very strange image.

More, please?

This cardinal has been walking on the long window sill occasionally bumping the window this
dreary morning. I could swear he's asking for the feeder to be filled!

This weekend's work

This is one of the mixed media I'm working on now using old photos and Lynne Hoppe's
tutorial as well as several other books. I was telling a new friend this morning that for each of
these old photo folks I put a copy of  the photo, info on the back, etc, into a sketchbook. Then I
'visit' these people as I add layers of expression, listening to stories that come to me. Some
cultures prohibit photos of people as it 'captures the spirit'. I believe it does.

 I recommend the Pitt artist pen (marker with a nice pointed tip that makes organic lines).
I found the more 'perfect' (zig, for example) markers' line doesn't work as well with my other
 random marks.

Here are some of the finished Kami/Santos with local bird friends perching on them. Lynne's
techniques were a great resource in the glazing/layering of expression on these guys. The
ugly guy holding the earth in the middle is Uranus, Gaia's consort. She's much taller but
headless in this photo.

There she is top left, next to the Mariposa (butterfly) Madonna. Gosh, the surfaces could use
some matting down even tho I used matte acrylic. Today's to do list....

The great liberation

For about 30 years I've hoarded collected vintage photos. My life was semi nomadic for several
years, settling into a small apt above my craft shop in 1994. I learned to collect small things if
anything at all. Buttons, old photos, lace, etc. Treasures I could move in my car. Lately I wonder
at all the shifting of stuff I must do just to keep the floor clean. It's like being chained to the earth
by boxes of stuff. So....

Opie and I are going thru all of the boxes of photos and saving about 1% of them for drawings.
The rest I'm sending out to friends who'd like them and selling lots on Etsy. If you're interested,
I'll be listing them in the next week or so a few lots at a time.  I'd really like them to fly off to
new homes.

I have a very small box filled with the photos to draw and paint. These folks have lived long
enough in boxes. They still have stories to tell. And I'm left with this precious box of stories.