More Alcohol Ink Fun

I made this in my mixed media club where we played with alcohol inks. The bird is die-cut acetate (with matching paper behind). The background is done on vellum paper.
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ATC #220 - Beach & King Pelican

I got to go on a real vacation with a friend to a timeshare in Newport Beach near Crystal Cove. It was really lovely and inspired me to make a couple of beach-themed cards. It also gave me the opportunity of using some more of the cool washi tape I recently got.

Watercolor background, Washi tape, cutouts, gold marker.
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ATC #192 - Try - An Experiment

The background here was made using my Gelli printing plate, which I love! It is like printing on firm gelatin, but it's permanent and cleans easily. It was so much fun to use. I found that the best print was usually the second one - there is more subtle variations and texture. The embellishment stuff at the top are shavings from sharpening a triangular-shaped fat colored pencil. I love the wavy edges from the pencil.
Acrylic paint, embellishments.
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ATC #185 - Birds at Play

I think this image is from old dye bottle labels. The birds look like they're having fun.
Scrapbook paper, collage elements, embellishments.
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Day 180 - Feather Your Nest

A theme we should all think about in this economy!
Faux post, specialty papers, embellishments.
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Day 177 - Crane Reaches the Shore

The crane, a symbol of longevity and fidelity, reaches land after a long migration. The background is really cool texture from a stamp I just got that makes me think of waves, water and wind.
Matchbox label, embellishments.
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Day 174 - Australia Cranes.

This stamp has really interesting colors, that don't really come out in the photo. The background is more of the painted paper that has a stenciled grid.
Specialty papers, postage stamp, embellishments.
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Day 155 - In Dreams

A friend often comes down to San Diego for the weekend. Sometimes we get together to play with collage & stamping, and her daughter joins us too. I went over there and she and my friends threw a surprise birthday party for me! I was totally surprised and had great fun! We had some time after eating dinner and birthday cupcakes to play a little. This is one of the ATCs I stamped there.
Scrapbook paper, stamped images, embellishments.
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Go make art!

Day 152 - Three Ostriches

This is another image from old labels meant for dyes. It reminds me of old matchbox labels which often had themes like 2 birds, 3 birds, 3 deer, etc. I wrote in "Three Birds" because I didn't think I could get the word "Ostriches" in there.
Specialty papers, embellishments.
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Go make art!

Day 150 - Fly Home

I like this bird stamp, although it has no eye, so I have to add it with a pen. I'm trying to catch up with posting! Hopefully tomorrow I will finish them all.
Specialty paper, stamped image, embellishments.
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Day 135 - Princess of Birds

The picture on this ATC is from a label for dyes, I think early 1900s, but I'm not sure. It came as part of a collage sheet & they are all pretty. She looks like she's having a fun day relaxing and playing with the birds.
Specialty papers, embellishments.
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Go make art!

Day 128 - Eagle in Snowstorm

This is a detail of a painting by Katsushika Hokusai from 1848, from the Pacific Asia Museum. One of the many reasons why this museum is worth visiting is that their collection is better than many in much larger museums.
Photo, scrapbook paper, embellishments.
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Go make art!

Day 115 - Nestling

More bird stuff. The oriole babies have fledged and the birds are drinking a gallon of bird nectar every 5 days. Sheesh! I can hardly keep up. I only have 3 8-oz feeders so I spend a lot of time refilling them.
Specialty papers.
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Day 104 - Hummingbird Dreams

I think I've mentioned how much I like birds. I have 2 hummingbird feeders that I've rigged up so that the orioles can use them too. At this time of year I use about 1/2 gallon a week of nectar. Soon the baby orioles will fledge and be full-grown and I will be very busy filling the feeders! This year I seem to have more hummingbirds than in the last few years. I feed regular wild bird seed for the finches, doves and towhees, primarily. I also have finch socks with nyjer thistle for the goldfinches. There are not nearly as many goldfinches (we have the Lesser Goldfinches here) as there has been in the past, so that's kind of sad. I have no idea why. The wildfires in 2007 reduced the population somewhat but they seem to be steadily declining in my yard.
Specialty papers, embellishments.
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Go make art!

Day 90 - Birds, Blue and Otherwise

I love birds. Just seeing them makes me happy. I have nectar feeders for hummingbirds and orioles, seed feeders for lots of other birds, and thistle socks for goldfinches on my back porch. It's so nice to see them feeding and flying around. There are at least 2 pairs of orioles that come to the feeders, so I expect to see lots of fledglings soon.
Scrapbook papers, embellishments.
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Go make art!

Day 64 - Bird Observing Chaos

Someday I will learn to leave well enough alone. Today's painting workshop was so busy I didn't work on an ATC at all. I have about 20 ATC cards that I smooshed paint on yesterday, so I picked one and with my gel pens I started to pull out some shapes from the paint. But I just couldn't stop with the doodling! If I weren't so tired I would start over but I'm having trouble keeping my eyes open already. So here is the mess I am inflicting on my project for today. If you haven't already, look at yesterday's ATC, it is pretty nice if I do say so myself.
Acrylic paints and gel pens.
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Day 39 - Bird Secrets

This was made totally from scraps in my stash. I didn't have to tear any paper or cut anything. I had already cut out the bird stuff for another collage but didn't use it; the papers were already torn up leftovers. Pretty cool... Cutout bird, postage stamp, stamping, specialty papers.
[Note:This is the post that was lost when Blogger was broken, then restored. But when I edited it to add labels, the publish date got changed. It was really published on the 11th.]
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Day 30 - Tranquility Bird

One month finished! Eleven more to go - oh joy. Haha. I found a sticker sheet with these cool bird & nature faux postals that I got from ARTchix Studio a while back. They are just lovely so I picked my favorite one to use today. It's hard to see but it says "Tranquility" on it. Most all of us can use more tranquility in our lives. Although the Zentangle® patterns on it are not very tranquil! Sticker, ink on Bristol paper.

Go make art!