Art · Art journal · Mixed-media · Nature

Tui

One of our most beloved native birds, here in New Zealand, is the tui. A medium-sized bird, a little larger than a blackbird, the tui has an interesting and varied repertoire of sounds, which include melodious ringing notes interspersed with coughs and grunts. They can also mimic the sounds of other birds. Tui live in native forests and rural areas, but can also be found in suburban parks and gardens that have flowering and fruiting trees. They are honeyeaters and love feeding from the nectar of flowering gums, kowhai, pohutukawa, flax and fuchsia.

When we go for walks, we often hear the whoosh of their wingbeats as they fly between trees. They are easy to spot with their white throat tufts and the iridescent blue and green sheen of their feathers in the sunlight.

Below are a few pictures that my husband has taken on our walks. They really show the beauty of these birds. The bottom two photos are of a tui that was feeding on nectar from the flowers of a kowhai tree, which I used as inspiration for my art journal page.

Art journal · Mixed-media · Nature

Autumn Journal Page

As we near the end of autumn, I thought I would make a page in my art journal celebrating the season using pressed leaves from our garden and from my parents’ garden. There are so many pretty colours from the different trees, creepers and shrubs.

For the background I used some of the free artist papers from Somerset Studio magazine. I glued on the leaves, then applied a coat of mod podge to the top of the leaves to seal and protect them as they are very brittle once dried. The photos are from recent walks, and I added an autumn poem that I wrote several years ago.

Floating, falling, drifting, swirling,
downward, sideways, high and low.
Spirited, lively, playful, carefree,
crisp and breezy, to and fro.
Amber, auburn, chestnut, copper,
old gold, russet, nut brown, mocha.
A colourful carpet of leaves everywhere;
farewell summer,
autumn is here!

We were surprised, on a recent walk, to see a mother duck with ten little ducklings swimming down the stream. It is the wrong time of year for ducks to be breeding and we can only assume it is a result of a very mild autumn, and hope that they all survived.

Art · Art journal · Mixed-media

The Skylark and the Rainbow

I recently signed up for the online mixed-media workshop 21 Secrets: The Great Outdoors, one of the many fabulous workshops run by Dirty Footprints Studio. It is a self-paced course that you can dip into whenever you have some free time in which eleven artists, each with with their own unique style, demonstrate fun projects. I am enjoying spending time with each of the artists, learning new techniques and gaining inspiration, and all centred around my favourite subject of nature.

One of my favourite workshops so far has been Laly Mille’s art journaling lesson The Poetic Botanist. A couple of weeks ago I went to the annual book sale at one of our local high schools and picked up some old, falling apart poetry books for a dollar each. The pages were perfect to use on my journal layout. Slipped inside one of the books was an old sheet of notepaper with a wonderful image of a rose, the exact sort of image I had been looking for to use as the focal image on my page.

My journal page was created with collaged book pages and sheet music, image transfers from old botanical books, paint, ink, washi tape, and a pressed rose from my mother’s garden.

I picked out random words from the collaged book pages, as well as some from my box of words, and wrote a little story that I journaled around the layout. Some of it is partially hidden, so I have typed it out below.

The Skylark and the Rainbow

Once upon a time a free-spirited skylark saw a rainbow in the sky and, forgetting the lessons of nature, he believed he could reach it.

Singing away, he felt the summer breeze on his wings as happiness carried him on his journey.

The higher he flew, the more distant the rainbow grew until it faded away into the parting clouds, replaced by rays of golden sunshine.

When the rainbow was gone, the skylark returned home, not feeling sadness at his failure to reach it, but instead remembering the little moments of joy that had filled his heart and soul as he made the journey towards the colourful ribbon in the sky.

Have a happy day on your journey towards your rainbow!