BIRDS, THAT'S IT, BIRDS

It was a usual Saturday by starting the day talking with my daughter who lives 100 miles south of us. The summer camp where I taught art was closing and we were discussing what I was going to do with all my time. I wanted to jump back into the local art world, but was growing tired of my first love water color. While I would never abandon it I needed somethng more. As the discussion proceeded I wondered if designer paper added to my creations would do the trick. But what to draw. In a flash, since we had been talking about our feathered friends at our bird feeder, my daughter said "What about doing birds? You love them and there are so many." I responded, "Birds, that;s it BIRDS," We talked a bit more about me doing a series and then with great urgency to get started on this new venture we ended our call.

I always research my subject matter so I immediately started looking at bird photos on the internet and printed a few images to study feather layering and shapes. I was getting excited. But just doing birds didn't satisfy me so I decided to do a series and started thinking of bird phrases that would be recognizable by the public. I though about "For the Birds","Birds of a Feather Stick Together", and then I splurted out to our two beagles...."Jail Birds"!! I was off and running. Out came 140 lb. watercolor paper, paint and brushes, a couple of pencils and a large eraser, glue and 3 pairs of my favorite scissors.

The first bird I did was a baby blue bird. I painted it in soft shades and then accented the painted area with the addition of layerd cut feathers. The scissors are key in this process, because the edges of the paper need to be exceptionlly smooth so that blending is not noticeable. Since I am focused on my creations and not on the location of my materials ,I need more than one pair of scissors available : I misplace them, cover then up with art supplies and drop them without realizing it. I know itsounds like my art table is chaos and sometimes it is, but the end result in my excited self is exactly what I want. I clean up after,but sometimes I just continue onto the next project. In fact I very seldom have one thing in proces, more likely two or three.

That partcular mixed media Jail Birds series ended up personally satisfying for me since I was able to rehome Butch and Sundance, Buster Wortman, The Shelton Boys and many others from the gallery Inspiration. Wanting to continue this new found love of ripping and cutting paper to enhance my water color paintings I decided to continue an art of the women in my family by recreating quilts and quilt blocks with watercolor and paper. Since so many of the classic quilt patterns are like a graphic puzzle the papper needed to be cut exactly many times over. If you think I didn't buy more scissors you are wrong. I experimented with differnt sizes and holds so that I could accomodate any angle of length needed. You won't find scissors in all art tool boxes, but I guarantee you will find many pairs in mine.

This past Covid summer I threw myself into my art. Since the facility where my art is represented was going to put up a Christmas Tree and offer ornaments for sale I thought what a better ornament than a recreation of Christmas done in the paper quilting style I was creating. Out came quilt pattern books, more internet searching and finally drawing. I decided to cut out the shapes of the ornaments after completed on heavy paper and then add heavy backing with thick Christmas designer paper. Since I was doing finished edges the cut had to be extremely smooth, once again showing how much my finished art depends on good scissors. I produced more than 100 ornaments and no two were alike. There were angels, the Nativity , Dogs in Christmas bow ties, Sun Bonnet Sue, Christmas Quilts and so much more.

Art is my life and I am one lucky individual to have the time and resources to do what I love daily. I could not finish any of my watercolor with paper creations without scissors. I am exactly like my Mom as she would eyeball anyone reaching for her "good quilting scissors". I have the same look when some one is going to cut something with my special scissors, don't even try it in my home!!

I use scissors practically daily, because I do my art daily.