Review of my "bird a week" challenge

Yesterday I finished my 52nd bird of 2011!  They were all part of my "bird a week challenge".  If truth be told, I made more than 52 birds in the year, but for the challenge, we only counted those that were a new design, and some of my extras were repeats of designs that I'd done before.

Looking back at them, I used 17 different materials to make the 52 birds.  Here are the main media:

• 18 were made from silver
• 12 were made from aluminum
• 5 were made from steel
• 3 were made from food items

11 of the 17 media I used, I had never tried before, so it was a big learning year.  The new media included encaustics, printing from zinc plates, plaster wrap, wax, and plasticine illustrations.

Most of the birds were "generic" but there were 9 specific species that I made, as follows:

• 1 eagle
• 2 bluebirds
• 2 herons
• 2 quail
• 1 robin
• 3 penguins
• 1 owl
• 1 parrot and
• 1 kingfisher

If I were to choose two techniques that I now wish I'd explored a bit more and tried more birds with, they would both be illustrations - one was a pencil drawing and one was a illustration with plasticine.   

Screaming Eagle - week 1

Great Blue Heron

I would really like to be able to illustrate and as I was lucky enough to get Adobe Illustrator for Christmas, I'm hoping that this is a skill that I can develop in 2012.

Here is a slideshow of all the 52 different birds.  Tomorrow I'll let you know about the others who joined me in the challenge.

52/52 Bird a week challenge - Given wings, where might you fly?

Gosh, the last week of the year and that means my 52nd bird of the year.  Yes, this year I have made a different bird each week of the year for the "Bird a week challenge" that I started.  To end the year, I wanted my piece to somehow take me into the New Year...and to be an inspiration for what the new year will bring.

And thus, here is: "Given wings, where might you fly?"

They are ear thread earrings of flying silver birds.  Ear threads are my favorite style of earrings and of course, birds are my favorite subject, so it seemed fitting to end the year with favorites.

And the title I find inspiring as it intimates that we all have wings...all we need to do is decide where we want to fly to.  The New Year is bringing lots of new things to my life - new opportunities, new challenges, new experiences - and so I'm going to spread my wings and fly!

It's been wonderful to do this challenge and have other artists join me on the way.  I'll do some summary posts of the the whole challenge over the next couple of days, but in the meantime, click on the links below to see this week's birds.

I hope you'll spread your wings for 2012 too.

51/52 Bird a week - Keep a green tree...

"Keep a green tree in your heart and a singing bird will come"

This week's bird is one I started a while ago, but only finished this week.   It is a lidded box with the sides of the box made from a car license plate that I bent and painted.  

 

The top and bottom are painted pieces of wood and the whole is then mounted on casters (to add to the whimsy). The lid is adorned with a little singing blue bird on top of a tree branch in the lid.

The bird on the branch with a red heart painted below, symbolizes the quotation "keep a green tree in your heart and a singing bird will come". 

I think it's a lovely quotation - encouraging us to keep an open, fresh heart and good things will happen.

The bird is made from plaster wrap cloth, which I wrote a simple tutorial on using, back in September.

He is my 51st bird this year...one more to come a week today and then I'll have made a different bird each week for the whole year.  There are a few of us on No. 51 so click on the links below to check out their penultimate 2011 bird too:

50/52 Bird a week - March of the penguins

This week's bird - or actually birds - are edible...but I don't think any have been eaten!  It was our book club Xmas lunch on Friday and I signed up to make dessert. I thought it would be nice to make individual desserts for the 10 of us, so I made gluten free ginger and zucchini igloo cakes and penguins from icing!

You may well see a similarity between these penguins and my penguin necklace "Cold hands, warm heart"!

When they were made, they all started playing together. Their favorite game, as you can see from the photos, is "follow the leader", or as they call it "The March of the Penguins".  Off they went, all around my kitchen!

Each one is sculpted from black, white and orange icing - which is made from powdered sugar with gelatine and glycerin. It's very easy to sculpt with.  You stick the parts together with either water or alcohol.

My sculpting of birds and animals in icing actually predates my sculpting in silver, and jewelry making.  In fact, it probably was a big influence in my 3D sculpting with metal clay as opposed to creating more flat pieces of jewelry.

Anyhow - at the bookclub lunch, the igloos were eaten, but everyone took their little penguin home. Some were to be saved for grandchildren, the others were going to sit as decorations for the Christmas holiday season!  Yes, they last quite a while in the open. I have three sat at the bottom of a candle!

With their igloos!

I am making dessert for a party this weekend too, so maybe some more penguins will join the march.....

To view the other birds that have been made on our 50th week of our bird a week challenge, check the links below! Yes, these little penguins are my 50th bird this year!  Only two more to go!!!

47/52 Bird a week challenge - Home to Roost

This week's bird - "Home to roost", is timely for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, we are flying home today, back to the US.  And secondly, tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the US and a time when a lot of people go home to share the celebrations with family.  So lots of people, as well as birds, will be going home to roost.

I made this bangle as a gift for a friend actually. The picture is of birds flying home in the evening at Lake Huron where she has a summer home. Sure enough, the lake house is a real place for the family to gather - both in the past when her parents were alive, and now also with the rest of the family. 

I got to visit there a couple of years ago and it was such a lovely homey place. No wonder the family go home to roost there.

The bangle is made from color anodized aluminum - or maybe as I'm typing this in the UK, that should be Colour anodised aluminium!

Hope you are going home to roost for Thanksgiving.

Here are links to other birds that have been created this week as part of our challenge:

46/52 Bird a week challenge - Kingfisher

This week's bird a week is a special gift.  It was my parents' Golden Wedding anniversary (50 years) on 11.11.11. so I sculpted this Kingfisher sitting on a reed,  in silver for them.

And the reason for a kingfisher?  When my parents go for a walk in Lincoln, where they live, whenever they see a kingfisher on the river, they always think of me and think that I am close.

And so I thought if they had a kingfisher sculpture, whenever they looked at it, they would always know that I was close to them, never mind how many miles away I may be.

The symbolism of a kingfisher is also appropriate as it is a long-time symbol of peace and the promise of abundance, new warmth, prosperity and love.  These are all wishes that I send to them as they continue their married life together.  The Kingfisher is also known as the Halycon and I'm sure they have many memories of Halycon days together from these past 50 years.

So remember mum and dad, like the kingfisher, I'm watching over you and always close to you.

If you want to see what other birds have been created this week, click on the links below:

45/52 Bird a week challenge - Quality time with friends

This week, I've gone back to aluminum for my bird a week and created a color anodized aluminum bangle.  In fact, there are 133 birds in my challenge this week.  They all decided to gather and just spend some time together. They are not really doing anything particular.... just hanging out together, chatting and laughing...... 

Sweet little birdies perched on the wires. Everyone has their little space, no one crowds the other and they chat to their neighbors or sometimes just sit in silence.

It seems a very pleasant way to spend the afternoon...don't you think?  Quality time with friends.

I hope you've had some quality time with friends this week.

If you want to see what other birds have been created this week as part of our challenge, click on the links below:

44/52 Bird a week challenge - Sweet dreams

Following on from last week's bird which was a ring "Sweet Nature", this week I've made a similar open ring entitled "Sweet Dreams":

The little birdie has his eyes closed and sits in the gentle glow of the moon...dreaming about???...worms? grubs? seeds?  I wonder what birds dream of... I think Harold our parrot dreams of cashew nuts and bananas (and macaroni cheese!)....but I wonder about the outdoor birds...

Anyhow, this one looks like his dreams are sweet.

Sweet Nature (left) Sweet Dreams (right)

If you want to check out the other birds that have been made this week by others taking on the bird a week challenge, click on the links below:

43/52 Bird a week challenge - Sweet Nature

I've been seeing open rings, or double headed rings for a while recently. They've caught my eye, but I'm not even sure what their proper name is...  Anyhow, I thought it would be fun to try and make one.

The idea is that the ring band doesn't close and on each end, you add a certain detail.  These details then sit between the fingers and the ring still sits securely on the finger.

For my ring, there obviously had to be a bird for my bird a week challenge.... and then I thought of a sweet little flower. I think birds and flowers are probably the sweetest things of nature, and thus I called it "Sweet Nature". It would make a perfect gift for someone with a sweet nature.

The joy of a double headed/open ring is that the size is somewhat adjustable.

Do you know what these styles of rings are called?  Are they only double headed when it is two "heads" you put on the ends ie like snake heads or something like that?  What name do you think accurately reflects it?  Hmmm..... and while we are all thinking on that...  take a look at what other birds have been created this week by following the links below:

42/52 Bird a week challenge - Cold hands, warm heart

Gosh - fancy being at week 42 of the year! That means only 10 weeks until the end of the year! 10 more birdies to make........

This week's birdie was made today!  I normally try and start them earlier in the week and finish them on the Wednesday but not this week! So I was busy this morning sculpting, drying, firing, polishing and adding resin.

Today's little guy is entitled "Cold hands, warm heart".

I'm sure you've heard the saying.....however scientists now say that it isn't true!  Yes, the Telegraph Paper in the UK wrote about how scientists have dispelled the little myth!

They found that people holding a warm cup of coffee were more generous and charitable than individuals holding a cup of iced coffee!

Oh well! Even if the myth doesn't hold up, I still think it makes a nice penguin necklace!  I wonder if scientists have tried the coffee study on penguins?

And what about people with Raynaud's disease too, whose hands go white in the cold as circulation decreases?  My hubby has Raynaud's disease - and we are just getting into the bad season for it with temperatures getting colder - but he has a warm heart!

Cold on the snowflakes

Hope your heart is warmed today.

Take a look at the links below to see what other birds have been created this week as part of our year long challenge to make a different bird each week.

41/52 Bird a week - Soar

This week's bird is one I started at the end of September. For September's Merry Go Round blog post, I wrote a tutorial on how to make a sculpture with plaster wrap, but I didn't finish off the sculpture.  Yes, you may have guessed that it was a bird, and so I finished him off today for this week's birdie "Soar".  

I had planned on painting him in acrylic paints, but in the end, I decided to use tissue paper instead. 

Doesn't he look like he is just soaring....so effortlessly.....!

You can read the plaster wrap tutorial here.  Plaster wrap is similar to the material they used to use to put a plaster on your arm or leg when you broke a bone! It's a great and quick material to use and you can then finish your sculpture in whatever way to choose.

I hope you soar this week!

If you want to see the other birdies created this week as part of the challenge, check the links below:

40/52 Bird a week - Warning: Low flying bird

This week's bird is the top bird in the above piccies with the yellow feather. He's a bit of a trickster and loves flying low - and annoying the parrot!  So much so, I've had to separate them.  I've kept the parrot brooch for myself, but the low flying bird brooch has gone to Santa Rosa, CA, for a new customer! I hope she keeps an eye on him! :-D

The low flying bird is similar to my first steel bird pin, but this time, his wing and special feather are attached (rather than just held with a magnet) and his beak is a different shape.  Both birds are brooches and secured using a simple magnet.

PS. I create my little vignettes using SuperLame.  Quick and easy!

If you want to see what other birds have been created this week, here are some links.  Can't believe we only have 12 more birds to make this year!!!!!

Watch out for low flying birds this week!

39/52 Bird a week - Life is good in the dog house!

This week's bird is not the focus of the piece, but just a little part of it. He is actually the bird of a weather vane on a dog's house. He enjoys sitting up there and spinning around in the wind!

It seems an appropriate piece this week as we have both a bird and a dog with us at home. And the dog has definitely been in the dog house this week!!!   Most of the time the dog, ( we are pet sitters for her) and our parrot Harold, ignore each other, but when the dog barks, Harold loves to shout louder!!  It's pretty scary here if the door bell rings!!!

The piece was made at last weekend's "Art is you" class.  I took this class as, you may recall, at the beginning of the year, I decided to try new things this year and be more experimental.  Compared to silver jewelry, I guess this is definitely something different!

The dog house and wheels are wooden; the window is mica; the roof is pewter; the window and door frames, dog, and bird weather vane, are all made from paperclay and painted with acrylics; and the flowers are felt.

 

If you are banished to the dog house this week, don't worry.  Life is good out there with all those pretty flowers!

To see the other birds that have been made this week as part of the challenge, click on the links below:

Article about our "Bird a week" challenge

A friend, and one of the members of our "Bird a Week" challenge - Joy Funnell, wrote a lovely article about the challenge in the online magazine "Metal Clay Today". 

It's definitely worth a read. Joy describes our goal to create a different bird each week for a whole year, and then goes on to say how she decided to make it harder on herself by making all of her birds in silver clay.  It's great to see the photos of Joy's weekly birds, including one of my favorites, the wonderful birdie faces brooch shown here as the heading to her article:

To read the whole article, just click on www.metalclaytoday.com and there is a link on the right hand side to the magazine.  It's a great magazine.

So glad to see you thrive with this challenge Joy.  What will next year bring????

36/52 Bird a week - Dan and Magnolia

I'd like to introduce you to Dan and Magnolia.  They are two lovely little birds.  And although Magnolia sounds like she is delicate - like Dan, she is pretty tough.

A little known fact about several varieties of birds is that instead of putting their surname (ie last name) after their first name, they put it in front of their first name.  Sounds a little odd, but that's how the birds do it. So yes, you've guessed it, these two little birds are known by their friends as Steely Dan and Steel Magnolia!

They love hanging out together - and also with people.  They never seem to stay still - maybe they even have restless leg syndrome as their legs are always on the move.  But it's a nice little affect- looks like they are dancing all the time.

Here they are with a larger member of their family.  He has an even odder name - Cutoats.  So yes, you've got it, he's Steel Cut Oats.

In their other life, Dan and Magnolia are earrings made from steel clay, with silver dangly legs and feet.

Check out the other birds made this week by following the links below: