Clueless Cooper's Hawk or feeding ALL the birds

Four times over the last couple of weeks, we have had a Cooper's Hawk land on the branches of the tree in the backyard. Not unusual, you say. And you are correct. After all, the saying about bird feeders is that when you feed the birds, you feed ALL the birds. However, this particular hawk comes in, and lands on the branch that the feeder hangs from, and steps along it until he is directly over the feeder. He then sits and looks around, as though puzzled as to where all the little birds have gone. Because by the time he's settled in, there's not a single junco, finch, chickadee or towhee to be seen in my yard.

I showed the pictures to a Master Birder friend of mine, and she was puzzled by his cluelessness as he apparently looks to be a two year old. Which means he must have learned to hunt at some point. Or maybe he's just a suburban hawk and cruises from feeder to feeder until he finds some small clueless bird too dumb to hide when a big hawk crashes into the tree branch right above. He did take off at an angle that let him use the roof as a shield so perhaps he got his lunch on the way out...




He certainly is a very pretty hawk, however, so I will just settle for enjoying his visits.

Upcoming Show in Edmonds

My EDGE class has graduated, yeah us!, and we have a show opening April 19 at the Edmonds Conference Center. The reception is from 5-8pm handily scheduled for the Edmonds Art Walk time. The ArtsNow Gallery hours at the Conference Center are 10am - 5pm, Monday through Friday so the reception is the only non-business time to see our work. Here's the list of artists.

The postcard art below shows the variety of work. We're a dozen artists which includes several photographers, a couple of watercolor painters, another couple of people who work in fiber (sometimes), collage makers, and a jeweler. Oh, and I forgot the non-traditional sumi painter. And the acrylics and oil painters. We are a mixed and interesting group and I think the level of work is exciting.

Spring Birding begins!

I actually got back into the field and got a full day of birding in last weekend with the last of the winter incursion of Snowy Owls. Three friends and I drove up to Canada and walked along the dike on Boundary Bay where there have been numerous owls sitting on the driftwood piles. There were lots of people, a few of them ignoring the signs about staying on the path, and the owls were mostly tolerant but did once in a while give a gruff look for trespassers. These owls show up about every seven years, depending on the food supply in the Arctic tundra where they normally live and it's always a treat to be able to see them this close.

After the owls, and a moderate wait at the border to get back into the States, we checked out the West 90 area in Skagit County. There are lots and lots of bald eagles to be seen. This group of young eagles looked like a bunch of crows from a distance but that's mostly because I'm not used to so many of them being in one spot.

Besides the eagles, we had great looks at several other raptors (Northern Harriers, a Rough-Legged Hawk, Red-Tailed Hawks) and a delightful look at several Western Meadowlarks. It was a great transition to spring birding.

My walks on the greenbelt this last week made it clear that the birds are definitely in spring mode. The swallows are back at Larsen Lake, swooping and skimming over the water, the Flickers are pounding on everything they can find, and the smaller birds are jumping around more. One of my favorites of the tinier birds is the Ruby-crowned Kinglet, pictured below. They are a greenish brown color that fades into the trees quite well but they jump around so much from branch to branch that it's fairly easy to tell they're there. This one cooperated in getting a couple of nice shots.


I really liked the composition on this one. Skulking little birds, the true challenge of Spring!

An experiment with discharge paste

My "Business of Art" class is coming to a close, with just a couple of assignments to be finished off before graduation later this month. So, I've been hitting the studio and actually making things! What fun.

I started an experiment with Jacquard Discharge Paste this last week. I started with this fabric, which has a tendency to appear very dark and more uniform when photographed at a distance. Since that's the way I do the photography for show submissions (at least for bigger pieces), I'd prefer that the visual texture be more obvious. I also wanted to see what the discharge paste would do on a fabric other than black. Most discharge work I've seen and liked was on black because commercial black fabric is created by overdying and the discharge usually doesn't get all of the underlying color. But I digress....

The instructions say to paint the discharge paste onto the fabric. They also mentioned thinning it with water if you wanted less discharging. So, I thinned with water and then applied with a sea sponge as I wanted to maintain the visual texture the fabric already had. As you can see below, I didn't get as much of the texturing in the discharge as I would have liked, and it's a good thing I thinned it because it discharged to almost white.

I didn't want such a bright white, but more of a subtle lightening, so I overpainted the discharged areas with Cobalt Blue Setacolor transparent paint. I like the results and will be playing more with discharging and overpainting later. I will also share those experiments, so stay tuned!

On being a sane artist

It's been a hectic and emotionally fraught month as my entire family deals with a death. Not surprisingly, my time in the studio has taken a big hit, and that has brought up all the artist (& writer & other creators) thoughts about inadequacy, and loss of creativity, etc. Fortunately for me, today's email brought a link to a blog which had a video embedded in it: A TED talk by Elizabeth Gilbert. If you have ever and I do mean *ever* been down that dark path when thinking about your own creativity, then watch this video. She has some amazing things to say about creativity and its source and how to stay sane as a creator. As an aside, I'll point out that part of what made it resonate for me is that we have a family motto - "Every dog needs a job." It will make lots more sense after you watch her 18 minute talk. See it here.

Snowbound birding

Now that the snow is finally melting, and the Seattle area is mostly back to normal, at least those who have electricity, I thought I'd share some of the photos I took of the birds visiting my backyard. I normally have feeders set up - one for hummingbirds, one seed feeder with the squirrel proof weight triggered guard, and a couple of suet feeders. I supplemented that during the snow with peanuts in the shell (which draws the Stellars Jays and crows), some chopped up apples (which drew the Varied Thrushes) and some of the bird seed tossed on the ground to make it easier for the ground feeding birds, mostly juncos, to find it. My backyard was busy and provided much entertainment for me and my two cats.

The hummingbirds were, as usual, waiting for me when I thawed out their feeder. I really like the contrast here with the piles of snow and the hummingbird hovering over the feeder. I suspect this is because a part of my brain still associates hummingbirds with flowers and warm weather and the contrast is amusing.

The Jays were quick to catch on about the peanuts. They took them away, also quickly, and would then sit waiting in the tree for me to replenish the supply.

My surprise photo this time was this Red-breasted Nuthatch. I usually see them up high, coming in from the surrounding tall conifers to feed at the suet feeder. I'm not sure why this guy was down in a bush just inches from the ground and only a few feet from my backdoor, but I was pleased to see him.

12 steps for going green in 2012

Today's email brought this simple list of 12 things to do to go green in 2012. Any or all of them, whatever can be done easily, will benefit our wallets and our planet. Read the full list here. I'm particularly pleased that the bike share programs I've mentioned earlier made the list. Bicycling to the local mall (about 2/3rds of a mile one way) is on my list of things to do more of this year. I'll increase my exercise level, use my car less and save money that way, and shop local. A great threefer!

2011 in Review and some good fiction for artists

It's been a rough year at my house. I had knee replacement surgery in March and spent several months playing Angry Birds, Plants vs Zombies, and reading *lots* and *lots* of books. One new author I discovered, because of being recommended to me, was Louise Penny.

In once sense, her Armand Gamache books are slow paced police procedurals. But in another way, because of the characters in her small town, and their work, these books are about the internal struggles of artists. And, in particular, two artists who are married to each other while being in different phases of their careers. I find these books require much more focus from me as a reader than the usual murder mystery. And I have enjoyed watching the characters grow and change. I don't read that many mysteries anymore, so I'm not sure if the focus on the characters is unusual or not. I *do* highly recommend these. They have the best characteristics of good novels within the setting of a police procedural and I found the many artist characters and their struggles illuminating for my own process as an artist. The most recent book in the series is A Trick of the Light but I would recommend reading them all in order because of the evolution of the characters.

As for 2011, I did, despite the knee recovery, create a few new pieces but I am still reworking my artistic process to allow for my physical limitations. And I'm cleaning up all the debris that accumulated from several months of inactivity in my studio. I look forward to sharing my new work with all of you in the near future.

Alternatives to mall shopping for Black Friday

Grist.org has a nice list of things people do on Black Friday instead of shopping. Since I stopped shopping at the malls for Winter Holiday presents, my need to watch "Die Hard" as my Christmas movie has decreased considerably. I like the movie marathon idea as well as the nature hike. This year, we're once again doing mostly handmade or edible presents since most of our relatives and friends have too much stuff already. Perhaps you might find an idea worth doing on this list.

Solar & Wind power going mainstream

I'm back from vacation, all rested and relaxed, with over 500 pictures of birds and landscapes. It will probably be a week or so before I finish processing them, a fairly tedious but necessary task, so I was very pleased by today's Grist email containing two articles about non-fossil fuel power generation. Apparently, big power companies are investing in solar power. Finally! Read the details here.

Secondly, there's a pretty map showing how much of each state's total electrical power could be supplied by wind power generation within their state. Talk about going local! There's also a link to the full report about energy self sufficiency. Read it here.

Stamp carving or another way to make my own fabric

In my ongoing search for ways to create my art without stressing my bionic knee or my herniated disc, I am playing with carving my own stamps to use in dyeing and batiking fabric, or adding images to already dyed fabric. I already have a lot of different dyes, fabric paints and silkscreening paint, so my new supplies list is pretty simple: carving tools and stamp material. Stampeaz has a nice sampler pack of stamp material so I started with that. And I got the 2.5 inch carveable brayer because the idea of the rolling image seemed fun. It's definitely something I can't do with a silkscreen. My local art supply store had a sale on the carving tools so after about $30, I was set to go.

I got my first image from Art Stamping Workshop by Gloria Page. I also watched her video which gave me really great tips on using the tools and how to make carving easier. Here's the stamp. I've used commercial batik fabric with spirals on it so I was very interested in doing something similar but with my own feel to it. This one started with a 4x6 block of stamp material.



Here's two images from this stamp. The one in purple ink was the first one. That's when I discovered that my eye was used to the lines I use in my silkscreen work and for stamping the lines needed to be thicker and stronger. I also didn't like the straight edges with all those curves so I shaped the edges as much as I could with the material left on the edge of the stamp. The black print is after the modifications. It came out much closer to what I was looking for.



I found this material pretty easy to carve. It's the Speedball beige stuff. Stampeaz mentions in the description they have for it that it can be crumblier over time. I'll try the other 2 materials I have from the sampler pack and see what I think. More about that later, as I get more carving time in.

Then I moved on to the brayer. I got the smallest one, which made it harder to hold onto it while carving. I didn't slice myself up, but I did slip and prick my finger a couple of times. Obviously some work to do here with the technique - probably both the holding and being more aware of my finger being in front of the carving tool's leading edge. Here's the brayer and how it did on paper in one picture. I missed inking all of it, so I filled the blanks in with blue ink so I could see where the gaps were easier. It was harder to ink the brayer evenly. The print pictured here was done with silkscreen ink spread lightly onto a paper plate.


I liked how this one worked to give me the continuous line of image, but the surface doesn't hold much ink so it fades fairly quickly. I will have to experiment to see how to improve this.

Next up, doing stamping with these stamps on fabric. Fun times ahead!

Fashionable & on a bicycle - tips to help

Today's email from Grist.org brought an article about bicycling and still presenting an office ready demeanor. Or being fashionable. Whichever way you choose to describe it. For the full article, go here. It's a quick interview with a woman who lives car free in Portland so it has several important tips for those of us who live in the Pacific North Wet. I encourage you to read the whole article but here's the important points from it (and mucho thanks to Grist.org and Elly Blue for giving them to us):

First and foremost, Meghan says, "suck it up and get some fenders." She's right. Far worse than any downpour is the rain and road muck that your tires heave up onto your legs, face, and back as you ride -- not to mention into the face of anyone unlucky enough to find themselves riding behind you.

Planning your wardrobe is just as important. Judicious investments are key. Wearing technical rain gear can mean getting just as damp from sweat as you would from a light rain, but it can save you from getting drenched in a downpour. Here are Meghan's suggestions as you find that wardrobe balance:

• Wear black. Or brown. Or dark colors and patterns. Black bottoms don't show rain and mud and a black top doesn't show sweat when you get overheated wearing a rain jacket.


• Wear wool if you can. I love my wool tights. They're not cheap, but you can get them in the off-season on sale, and they're totally worth it. Guys, go for wool pants. They're sexier than khakis anyway. Seriously.


• Don't ever wear cotton in the rain. You'll regret it for hours. (The stuff takes forever to dry!) Even synthetics are better than cotton if you can't or don't wear wool.


• If it's truly pouring, I accept that I'm going to get wet and go bare legged. I wear shoes that dry quickly (like Crocs or Melissa brand shoes). I dry off MUCH quicker than everyone else! (If you decide to fight it, try some rainboots. I like the Tretorn ones because they're lined, but you can get any ol' boots and put some sealant on them and they'll do the job.)


• A tight cap under your helmet will sop up rain and keep water from trickling through your hair and down your face.


• Invest in a good-lookin' raincoat! Like the kind you'd wear to walk down the street. You don't have to look like you're mountaineering every day.

This year's shows

I picked up my piece, The Big Bang: A Bird's Eye View, from the Connecting Threads Exhibit in Seattle this last Friday and realized that I had neglected to mention that show and my current solo show on my blog. (Bad Artist! No cookie!) The Connecting Threads show was for the graduates of the Fiber Arts Certificate program at UW and we had 55 artists participating. I think I didn't mention it because I was physically unable to do all the stitching that I wanted to on the piece and I was therefore unhappy with it. Having it come home after almost 3 months has given me a different perspective. So here it is.


I feel it still needs some work to highlight the splitting/openings in the background but I'm not sure exactly how I'll be doing that. We shall see...

My current show is at the Northlake Unitarian Universalist Church in Kirkland, WA. The gallery is in the sanctuary so my work can be seen when the sanctuary is open for functions and during church office hours (Mon-Fri, 9:30 - 1:30pm). I learned a lot about picking work for a show and hanging my pieces so this has already been a fabulous experience. I hope to have an artist reception sometime before the show comes down in early November.

World Bicycle domination! or at least lots of blogs

Okay, it's summer, so that's why lots of bicycle posts lately. That and my studio is undergoing a major renovation to allow me to work/sew standing up. But, I find this report from Grist.org exciting - lots of bike enthusiasts sharing and networking and getting attention from their local governments. Read about the coming world bicycle domination here.

Local energy production means local jobs

Great news on the going green front today from grist.org: there's a rural community movement to produce their energy locally from sustainable sources and a village in Germany has hit 100% local energy production. It took them 8 years, given the government support for renewable energy in Germany, and there are rural communities in the US doing the same. Read more here. I think this is great - reduces carbon production, reduces dependence on foreign oil, and produces more jobs for local people. What's not to like?

An example of permaculture gardening

Today's email brought an interesting page about how to grow an apple tree in a permaculture way, providing nutrients & water without external fertilizer and watering. Here's where to read it in detail. It's part of a new wiki aimed at helping build resiliency so there are lots of interesting pages available and more all the time. I love low effort gardening myself, especially as my joints are wearing out. And this sort of effort is possible to do now, in experimentation.

More fabulous biking news! More space on the street, oh yea!

This just in via Grist.org, bike corrals are the big new thing in Nevada City, CA. Apparently, they're gaining in popularity nationwide and what's not to like about having actual decent parking space for bikes? Read all about it here.

Electric folding bike to be made in Portland

As you all may remember, we bought an electric folding bike a couple of years ago. We're still using it, and it works well for short errands and coordinating with bus transit, but it was manufactured in China. And the manufacturer had problems so the bike shop we bought it from no longer carries it. This could cause problems if there's ever a major maintenance/repair issue so I am pleased to report a project to produce an electric folding bike in Portland, Oregon. They're doing it via Kickstart so you can be an investor if you like. Read all about it here.

Edible landscaping that won't offend your neighbors

In July, Oak Park, Michigan, got on the map by prosecuting Julie Bass for putting food gardens in her front yard. After a bit of internet uproar, and people pointing out that the town rules had many exceptions written in to them, they backed down. Since lots of people are facing economic difficulties, along with those who just don't always trust the agribusiness created food, there are more and more people interested in putting in some kind of garden. Front yards often get the best light so here is an article about how to do it and minimize the problems with neighbors. Some interesting design issues pointed out along with the mention of permaculture which is a step beyond just putting in a food garden.

Bike Sharing takes off

It's been a long hiatus for me due to knee surgery, and some problems with rehab, but I'm back and planning to post again regularly.

This article about bike sharing caught my eye this morning. There's a 4 minute video which is not only pretty to watch but informative. See it here. I'm sure this system works best in areas where there are compact business districts, but I can also see it working where there are large companies with say 35,000 employees (says the woman living 2 miles from Microsoft). Have a few of these racks, and reasonable transit connections, and voila, your employees don't have to commute by car and still be able to run errands or go out for lunch. Fewer parking garages, less traffic congestion, sounds like an overall win to me. The video is about the system in Minneapolis. There are currently systems in Washington, D.C., Madison, Wisc., and Denver. Boston is planning one. Notice how they all have winter?