New Paint~

I've been away for quite a while, but I've been working on a lot of different and new things.  Mainly trying to find new paints that will work better for my use on feathers.  The feathers have a challenging texture to work with, never mind the thinness. 

After a lot of experimenting and a trip to the art shop, I found what seems to be a perfect match!  This is only a single coat of paint, compared to the normal 2 or more of the past feathers.  Its so exciting!

There are so many different types of paint to go through, and so many different brands.  And the prices go from $1.50 to $20 for a little tube.  So experimenting can get quite pricey if there's not a good way to bring the choices down.  What I've settled on is a type of gouache, which has a relation to acrylics.  It has so much more pigment!  The yellows are the most impressive with this one!

I've also given a few new brushes a shot from Beste.  They're still very tiny, with most of them going from 0 to 10/0.  It may just be my excitement, but they seem to be able to give me a bit finer of lines with a bit more reliability (as in the dragonfly wings)

A New Path Along the Road

I met a really fantastic woman in Nags Head, NC that ran a clog shop.  It's called Chameleon Clogs and if you ever visit the Outer Banks it is in the new Food Lion plaza on Hwy 12.  A friend had shared one of my feathers with her and it just so happened that she was looking for local artists to help with hand-painting some designs.  All of this happened during a party at her shop where I got to not only see the finished products, but watch the creation of some of her woven clog designs from start to finish.

The main challenge for me is that it has to be a mirror image. Normally, I do one shot paintings. I find something inspiring and I put it into a painting or other design. Very rarely do I duplicate, let alone mirror. But I am always up for a challenge!  My first design is a bit simpler than what I do with my feathers, which made it easier to replicate for the clogs.  They are approved and I am expecting more blanks to make some more dragonflies and try out a few other designs that are cooking in my head.  This is a really exciting and unexpected opportunity that I am happy to have a chance to take part of!

Mosquito Assassins

Every year, we have a mosquito problem.  All it takes is a few drops of rain, and the little suckers come out of seemingly nowhere to feast on the unprepared.  Nature's solution?  The dragonfly.  And last year, we got TONS of them!  Every shape and size too.

They were welcomed friends to be seen at the start of every season, eating as many little mosquitoes as they can.  They seem to hover almost effortlessly through the thick humid air of summer.  Landing on your skin just long enough to make eye contact before streaking through the air again, as if to remind you that they are working hard on the problem.

And just a little bit of a side note, I've been blessed to have been able to have this feather purchased by a very dear friend to be a gift for her mother.

While the dragonflies take care of the daylight hours, the night is a different story.  While we don't seem to have many of them, we do have a few bats to take care of the night shift.  These wonderful little creatures eat more than their weight in mosquitoes every night!  There's still so many people who fear these little winged friends.

Getting over the fear of bats can mean looking deep into the dark.  They're strange creatures, some of them don't even need their eyes to see, and they're the stuff of horror films.  But when it comes down to it, they're truly wonderful little creatures that are just built specifically for their environment.  They're not scary, or ugly, or vicious, they're wonderful little animals that are just their to do their job.