Weekly Bird in the hand

Here is this week's list of things I am grateful for - my "bird in the hand"

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• Laura - the massage therapist at the spa in San Miguel.  She gives the best massage I have ever had.  I had one after our horse riding which totally revived me and then had another one yesterday which was just so relaxing.  To have someone take that much care and pay all that attention to you for two hours was just amazing. 
• Mario - a great guide who took us to Guanojuato on Thursday.  I'll show some photos of the trip in the next couple of days.
• Rita - my sculpture teacher - for being so encouraging and a wonderful, fun teacher.
• My parents for being willing to get out of their comfort zone and join us in San Miguel and try lots of new things too.
• Bright colors.  You'll see when I post photos from Guanojuato just how wonderful the colors are here.  It just makes me happy to see all these colored houses and bright art....here's a taster

• The "bird a week" challenge group. We are now up to 18 members! It makes me so happy that others want to join in the challenge. Thanks all of you who are participating.  Two weeks down, fifty to go!!!

2/52 Bird a week - the girl with a bird nest in her hair

For the second week of the "bird a week" challenge, I sculpted a bird using clay.  He sits happily in a nest made of hair on the lady I sculpted.  This is my first clay sculpture ever.

For those of you who have followed my creation this past week, the lady now has her neck hollowed out (!) and I also gave some more attention to her eyes and hair, and added some eyebrows. 

I thought I would finish this sculpture off on Wednesday but I tried to "dress" the lady a little and didn't like the result.  So today is the end of the wet clay phase - hopefully -  and then the little lady and her bird get to dry out for a few weeks before firing. Fingers crossed they fire well....

If you are joining in the "bird a week" challenge - please add your link to your blog post or flickr photo below and then add the link list to your blog too.  If you haven't joined and would like to - please go to the flickr group. 

Cactus grow everywhere!

The cactus grow everywhere around here! After my close encounter with one while I was horse-riding - I keep a warchful eye out for them - but as I'm not inclined to walk on the roof, I think I'll be safe from these!!

The pigeon who didn't want curly hair!

Did your mother tell you that if you didn't eat your crusts from your sandwiches, you wouldn't get curly hair?  Mine did, but it didn't work!  I still have straight hair!

I think this pigeon wants to keep his feathers straight - so is working hard at avoiding the crust! What do you think? 

Thanks Jennifer, for sending on the photo to me!!!

The girl with the bird nest in her hair

As I've been working on my clay sculpture, I wanted to bring a little bit more of myself into the piece - make it definitely a "Ruth" piece - and so, did you guess from yesterday's photo?  I purposely cut the top of the photo off but wondered if anyone would guess.....?

Yes, I made her hair into a nest and put a bird on top!  Now I feel it is a Ruth sculpture!!  What do you reckon?

I had a vague memory about a story from my childhood about a girl with a bird nest in her hair.  Did you ever read it?  The story goes that a little girl grew her hair long but then didn't want to brush it. You know how little girls' hair can get so tangled so that it hurts when you brush it? Well, that was the case with this girl.  So she told her mother she wasn't going to brush it.  The mother said she had to, otherwise birds would come and nest in her hair....

But the girl ignored her mother's warning and didn't brush her long hair.  Sure enough, as warned, little birds came and started nesting in her hair.  They were just tiny little songbirds to start with and so the girl actually quite liked it.  However, after a while, bigger and bigger birds came along and also wanted to nest and then it got quite painful.  The girl didn't like the big birds trying to nest in her hair - and so eventually, she had to admit that her mother was correct - and so, with her mother's help, got rid of the bird and began to brush her hair regularly.

And so, here is my sculpture now - with a little bird nesting in the top.

I also hollowed out her shoulder area, added eyebrows.....and in my next class I have to hollow out her neck, but then she'll be just about done and will need to be left to dry.

Hope you like how she is coming along.  I haven't thought of a name for her yet? Any ideas?  "Nest" is a girl's name apparently - it's Welsh - but I don't think that's right for her.  I'll have a think today and see what I come up with......

Sculpting class #2

I am afraid to say that the batteries on my phone had run out at my second sculpting class on Friday - so  I couldn't take any photos!  And it was so much fun - sorry you missed it! I'll describe what I did so you can follow along....

The above photo was how I left her after my first lesson.....From here, first of all, I took the pole out from her head which had been there for support. Then I worked a little on her sinuses as she said she was having trouble breathing.  Next came the addition of two little ears and then I moved on to perform brain surgery!  This involved slicing off the back of the little lady's head and scooping out the "brains"!  Cleaning it out really nicely!!!

I've often thought about frontal lobotomies and what 'interesting' surgeries they were, and here I was doing more than a lobotomy! My lady had been covered in plastic sheeting since the first lesson to keep the clay wet, so the surgery went smoothly!

After scooping out the inside of the head, I then put the back of the head back on, and gave my little lady some hair.  I decided to put her hair up.......and this shows how it is coming along - the little block is still under her chin to hold her head up while the clay isn't dry:

I had another class today but I'll save those photos until tomorrow, along with my little story....

Doing the Blog hop!

No - this isn't a new dance class I've started while in San Miguel - but I have just tried my first blog linky and blog hop so thought I'd tell you about them and maybe you'll enjoy them too.

I've decided to use a blog hop for all the "bird a week" challenges on my blog.  You can see it in action on this week's blogpost here: "Bird a week #1"

But maybe it takes a bit of an explanation!

A blog linky is basically a blog tool that allows readers to leave a list of links in your blog post that relate to your post.  So for the bird a week challenge, whenever anyone adds a flickr photo to the group or writes a blogpost about their weekly bird, they can add the link to my blog post, so readers can link to all the participants.

A blog hop then, is a shared blog linky in that everyone who adds their link to the linky, can also add the whole list to their blog post too. Any new entries to the blog list are then automatically added to all the blog posts.

I know it sounds a little confusing but when you see it in action - it's a lot simpler!  Here's what it looks like on my first "bird a week" post:

Now if Joy or Lorena want to add this list to their blog post, they just click on the "get the code here" and insert it at the end of their blog post.  If someone adds to my linky, they automatically are added to all the linkys!


See - clear as mud!!!


Hmm. Maybe I'll try this on my merry go round posts too, so it's easy to link through to everyone's posts. 

Weekly Bird in the Hand

My first "weekly bird in the hand" post of the new year :- the things I am grateful for this week:

Photo by jurvetson

This is an easy one - and while I am grateful for many things this week so the list could be long - there is one significant one so I'll keep it to only one item.

On the 6th January, my nephew Matt was 16 years old!  It seems impossible - where have all those 16 years gone?  So my bird in the hand this week is Matt!  I am grateful for all the joy, love, entertainment, fun, laughs, conversations, etc he has given.  What a wonderful nephew.

To think that 16 years ago, you were like that little bird in the nest! Now look at you!!!

Love you loads xxxx

Bird a week #1 - Screaming Eagle

As you may have read this week in my blog, I've started a little challenge this year - maybe not so little???

It is to make a different bird each week.  I've opened up the challenge to others and so far there is a nice group of us starting out - using any media - with the goal of making/creating 52 different birds in 2011.

I started a drawing class here in San Miguel and so thought I'd try drawing a bird as my week one birdie. As I've never studied drawing before and am a complete beginner, the teacher has had me drawing Mexican dolls and pots/jugs etc using vine charcoal.   She is very encouraging and supportive so - getting carried away a little - I thought for my bird week 1 challenge, I'd try something new at home and give pencil drawing a go.

The result is "Screaming Eagle" - a birdie who looks a little angry - but I think he is just enjoying a little scream!

What do you think?  I'm encouraged to do more birds and will take this one to class today and see what the instructor has to say.  Maybe I'll be brave enough to work on some birds there and move on from pots/jugs!!

If you want to see what the other members of our "bird a week" group have done for their first weekly challenge, click on the links below.

It's not too late to join our challenge - in fact you can join any time of the year.  Or if you know someone else who might be interested - do pass on the info.

If you are playing along in our Bird a week challenge, please add your link to your to your blogpost (NOT your blog please) or Flickr photo. Click on the button below and fill in your name with the link to your blogpost or Flickr picture. This is a blog hop so you can put the list on your blog too.Just follow the directions below.

My first ceramics sculpture class

As I said in my New Year post, I want to try lots of new things this year and be more experimental. To that end, this week I've tried my first ceramic sculpture class!

Not content with starting with some easy, we went straight to the human head and face!!!

It was so much fun. The teacher Rita was a delight and I loved getting my hands into that thick clay!! It was also nice to know that the clay left on my hands wasn't silver and could be washed away without another thought!!

I'll be going back for a few more classes to finish this lady off and who knows what elaborate things she'll end up with. I'll take photos and show you her progress - whether good or bad!

And yes, the little support under her chin is only while she dries! Similarly - she won't always have a pole sticking out of the top of her head - but you get the impression!!!

Showertime! - Master Muse Project

My last master muse project is up on Tonya Davidson's blog today, for Whole Lotta Whimsy. It's entitled "Showertime".  The full step by step process of how to make this necklace will be available at WLW in the near future.

Our challenge was to make a piece of jewelry that resembled pierced work from sheet metal  - but without all the sawing!

As I began thinking about what I could put behind a pierced design, I wanted to try something different and so began looking around the house.  And thus I came up with the idea of "showertime" and using a colored towel behind the cut out!  Using an object associated with the illustration adds more "punch" to the illustration, I think!

I made the piece reversible with a person in a shower on one side and an umbrella on the other!

 

Hope you like it.  Hope it makes you smile :-D

Join the Bird A Week challenge

Want to challenge yourself?  Why not join my "Bird a Week" challenge for 2011.  The goal is to create a different bird each week, using any media you like.

It is a personal challenge - no strict rules, no police - just a way to encourage us to keep those birdies coming - and hopefully end up with 52 different birds each at the end of year and a greater appreciation of birds!

I have formed a flickr group -  Bird a Week - where we can all post our weekly photos of our creations and also a list of blogs for those of us who may blog about what we are doing and what others in the group are doing.

If you yourself don't make/create birds and know someone who does - please forward along the link to them. It would be nice if we had a group of us working together. Thanks for spreading the word. Any media works.

Get birding!

Any questions, just let me know.

A bird a week challenge

I realized last year that I seem to do well and enjoy having challenges for myself. For example, I started the year with "a month of earrings" where for  February and March I made an earring a day, then I had the master muse challenges every couple of months..... I like the "pressure", if you can call it that - to make and complete something even if sometimes it can get frustrating.

So a thought that has been running through my head this last month or so is to challenge myself to a "A Bird a Week".  The "bird a week" idea means that I have a goal to create a different bird - in any media I like - each week.  I find birds so inspiring and I would like to try making birds in different media and thus this challenge would be an opportunity to "study" birds in more depth, looking at different species or styles etc.

What would be even better would be if others joined in too........how about it? You know you birdie types out there....Wanna join the challenge and create a bird a week? See if we can come up with 52 different birds in 2011? Let me know... We can set up a Flickr group.... and share our creations.  It would be fun.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Oh oh, better start thinking about this week's birdie now......

Feliz Nuevo Ano

Feliz nuevo ano! Happy 2011! Hope it has started well.

Have you been thinking about the past year and the new year and figuring out your wishes, goals, dreams etc?

This past week in San Miguel, I've been trying lots of new things.  I've tried:

• a printing class, doing mono prints, metal etching, and lino cuts

• a Mexican cooking class
• started a drawing class and was so pleased with my very first drawing in charcoal
• went horse riding and galloped for the first time
• had my best massage ever with hot stones - to get over the galloping!!
• relaxed in hot springs

and this next week I'm looking forward to trying ceramic sculpture, continuing with my drawing and who knows what else!

It's made me think how I love doing new things, stretching myself and just giving things a try.  So I think a focus for me for 2011 is to be more experimental.  After all, I trained and worked as a research scientist before finding metal clay  - doing experiments every day, and loved the buzz of research. I thrived on the buzz of science and now look forward to finding the buzz of art in 2011.   Less focus on producing to sell, more focus on creating and exploring. Who knows where it'll lead.

What about you?  Having new thoughts and ideas as the new year begins? I'd love to hear what you are thinking.