OK, so I previewed these in my previous post however I finally managed to source some ribbon I was happy with and I’ve got them finished and pictured:

available from coriandr and etsy

Regular readers may remember a post I made a few weeks ago, Trial by Clay, in which I featured a rough attempt at a clay bird, I’ve since refined the notion and have been merrily creating a range of slightly smaller free standing birds with a simplified design in red and white, the scheme works well with the copper legs and necks that I’ve been giving them, recycled from our on-going rewiring project.

Available from Etsy and Coriandr

As well as the free-standing birds I’ve also been busy making hanging birds for use as Christmas decor, their not quite finished yet since I need to source some nice ribbon for the hangers and I just haven’t seen any that I think is suitable yet, bit of a WIP in that respect, although I’ll hopefully have them in the shops soon.

It was about two years ago that someone suggested that I should have a go working with clay when they saw the wood carvings I was turning out, at the time it wasn’t a suggestion I took particularly seriously, not to say that I wasn’t interested I just couldn’t get my head around it as a medium.

Fast forward to 2010 and I finally plucked up the courage to get some clay, a reinforced air-drying variety that means I don’t need to worry about getting access to a kiln … although I can think of at least two people who might be able to provide access if I asked nicely!  The images here are representative of my first tentative toyings with the substance, and show a distinct lack of adventure on my part …

… first up is a clay version of the bonnie birds …

… the bird here is about 5″ or 6″ tall to the tip of it’s tail.  Whilst this little lady below is more like 3.5″ tall …

You may notice that both pieces use the same palette, there’s a very good reason for this.  I’m tight.  That is all … lol

… and still I’m gripped by an inability to craft, seized as I am between an unfinished poly-tunnel and the start of the school summer holidays.

Progress on the poly-tunnel is slow, although there is at least progress with the door-frames having been erected since my last update, leaving only the base-rail to attach, the cover to apply and finally the door to attach.  On the bright side I have discovered an aquilegia hiding under a willow hedge, I’ve wanted aquilegia in the garden for an age and knew that if I was patient it would make it’s way up here from the village below.

We also have one of these (below) in the garden although, I’m damned if I know what it is …

… in fact, it’s bugging me so much that I’m willing to give the first person who can identify it a £5 discount off anything with a price-tag of £10 or more from the shop.  All you need to do is convince me that your identification is correct by providing me with a link/s to somewhere that shows pictures with the correct name attached.  Just leave a comment at the bottom.   That should be easy enough if you already know what it is :)

Also today the lad has been playing with dung beetles …

It seems like forever and a day since I originally thought about giving my bonnie birds wings, indeed, it seems like forever and a day since I actually started making this one!  Based around the same principles as it’s forebears I had to add some additional armature to build the wings both from a practical point of view but also to ensure that they would be strong enough to stand-up to life’s little knocks.  This is the end result

I’m reasonably pleased with the finished product although, contrary to what it looks like, I had an abstraction of a Green Finch in mind when I painted it!

{image source}

You would think that given, aside from chaffinches, that this is the only bird that visits our garden with any regularity that I’d be able to summon up an image in my minds eye and work it up on one of my bonnie birds; it seems my mind is prone to wandering when I pick up a paintbrush and the notion that I might paint anything in the fashion that I originally intended is completely lost!!

Available to buy from the shop

It seems that the higher the temperatures get with the incredible – if not late – onset of spring and summer the lower my enthusiasm for doing crafts becomes.  Given the choice of doing ‘work’ in the garden or sitting doing crafts it seems that the garden chores win out every-time … not that there isn’t plenty to be getting on with out there!

I’ve not been completely idle though on the craft front with a couple of developmental pieces underway.  This one was just done for fun when I was messing about with some left over mache.

The spider in the foreground here was my first, half-hearted attempt at a spider, partially inspired by some fabric spiders I caught a glimpse of on Ann Wood’s blog that Jolene follows, clearly it bears no real resemblance to that spider – it really just provided the kernel of a notion that later developed (and is developing) into an idea.

Following the creation of this rather cartoon-like spider I went on to work on something a bit more life-like with reference to a variety of spider photo’s and biology models that I found around and about on the internet.  The end result was this spider pictured below.

I’m still not entirely satisfied with the spider – although I do like the mandible’s – I think the Abdomen (back bit) is too small in relation to the Cephalothorax (front bit).  I may work up another version of this, weather permitting, that’s a bit more anatomically correct – although I don’t think I’ve ever made anything that’s not largely abstract … it might be an interesting challenge.

I’ve nearly finished working on a winged version of my bonnie birds, another development piece, and I’ll share that when it’s finished too.

Peacock’s are well known for their fantastic plumage and for proudly strutting their stuff, they’re also an immense source of inspiration for a huge number of people; as you’ll discover if you type ‘peacock art’ into google and look through the image results.  It’s easy to see why they should act on the imagination and why artists and crafters alike should wish to include aspects of them in their work, I was reminded of that recently when we visited a local farm park – see here – with the kids and there was a couple strutting back and forth, all the while studiously ignoring each others existence.

Their arrogance and aloofness reminds me of ‘those people’ who have an arrogance born out of forever being told how handsome or beautiful they are, how wonderful they are, how perfect … at least the peacock’s have reason to believe it of themselves.  Here are a few pictures I took while we were at the park:

click to full view

I’d love to do a Bonnie Bird drawing inspiration from these birds although I think I need to carefully consider the execution of such an exploit. So, in the mean-time, here are a few samples from around the internet of what others have been up to recently:

by Deadpan Alley

by Jen Skelley

by Verabel

by Sally Boyle

Following Jolene’s last post I couldn’t resist the post title, nor – I’m afraid – could I resist including a little musical flashback to my youth … I’ll leave that till the end though!

As Jolene said in her post I have been making more bonnie birds and taking her through the process at the same time, I could be wrong, but I think it falls into the harder than it looks category.   Certainly I think it’s taken a bit of practice and development to get them to the stage they’re at now, I only wish I had saved the original prototypes to share with you by way of a comparison with the ones I’m making now … the difference is quite startling!

I’m working on something else now and have saved the prototype of that one so you can see that these things don’t simply materialise without any thought … although that’s often the way these things begin, with a random convergence of whimsical and divergent partial thoughts!  Anyway these will be my last Bonnie Birds for a while so that I can concentrate on other things.

Click for full size!

These and others available from the shop.

And finally, as promised, some classic rock!

Actually that was released in 1980 … a little before my time :)

Spring always seems to drag it’s feet when it comes to arriving at our rural idyll so I’m sure you’ll forgive me the posting of some piccies I took yesterday when the garden seemed to be alive with bees … except for when I wanted to photograph them!

I promise you some more crafty goodness in the next few days, there are pics and posts waiting to be made by Jolene, and I’ve also been making more bonnie birds and Jolene’s been trying her hand there too.

I’m not sure if this is an abstraction of the commoner garden blackbird or what happens when bonnie birds start listening to goth music!?  Whatever it is I’m rather pleased with the colour combo, I may even go so far as to describe it as being a bit chic … but, to be honest, I’m not entirely sure what that means!

Anyway, the sun’s been out the last few days and so it would have been churlish to not get out there are get a couple of photo’s outside, just for a wee change from my usual white background.

As ever this is available in our shop, there are also some additional images there too :)