art gallery

(posted 10/30/2021)

I am happy to announce I have completed my final bird of Birdtober 2021, a chance for artists of Instagram to show off and/or improve their bird art skills for each day of the month of October. This challenge came from a super talented Texas artist who has my gratitude for the inspiration and education: Andrea Holmes, whose web site is linked here. She brought awareness to the TCA Texas Lights Out for Wildlife campaign, which encourages turning off non-essential lights from overnight during the four months of peak migration, September, October, April, and May. More information can be found at tcatexas.org.

If you are interested in purchasing any of my encaustic birds done on 3 inch wood ornaments, you can find the remaining few in my Etsy shop linked here. Encaustic is something that is far more interesting to experience in person. It has a glow, texture, and scent you obviously don’t glean online.

Here are the 31 birds, keep in mind the photos are in descending order:

Thank you for looking! This ended up being a super rewarding challenge, and I will probably do another one next year. Here are some of the valuable lessons I took from the month’s work –

Work at art. I often create new pieces just as experiment or “playing” in the studio. It’s quite different in a good way for me to have assignments. I’m not often motivated to create lots of art, so this has helped me generate a lot more items to sell than I normally would in a month’s time. I think I should pay attention to that and set more goals for myself in order to bulk up my inventory.

Don’t rush. I didn’t make many mistakes, but I did when I rushed through the work and/or was not “in the moment” but thinking of something else. This proves the fact for me once again that multitasking does not work, and the ability to focus is a wonderful asset. Lists help me stay on track and not forget steps such as signing my drawings. Yes, I forgot to sign one before applying the wax – hopefully just one. I also forgot to paint the edges black on a few.

Be prepared. This was probably my biggest lesson learned. In order to post daily, I created a system to work on groups of birds, usually four at a time. The encaustic ornaments required several steps, including drying time for the paste, so it was always better for me to repeat each step four times in a row rather than work on the entire process at once. My brain is wired that way and I work efficiently like this at my day job, so it was easy for me to create a system and follow it. Giving myself the time to do it was the challenge. I had to look at my calendar weekly and plan which days were available to spend a few hours at a time in the studio.

Don’t compare. If you search the hashtag #birdtober or #birdtober2021 you can see the beautiful work posted by all the participating artists. I’m not the best and I’m not the worst. Where I fall in the middle does not matter to me because when someone looks at the work I create I know mine stands out as unique. Encaustic medium also gives the pieces distinction. I think most encaustic artists have their own unique style and process and that’s one of the reasons I love the medium. My pieces are truly one-of-a-kind.