The Return of the Framed Fern Friends

From collecting, pressing, and drying ferns to use them in my 3D paintings, to getting them tattooed on my body (I’m up to five now!), to ensconcing them in mini resin pieces, you could say my fern obsession is pretty intense.

I actually created a few pressed framed fern compositions before leaving Hawai’i and again with my dear sweet mama for Mother’s Day last year. Since they have been such a big hit as gifts, I figured I’d make a few available for a fun music festival I’m attending as a vendor this weekend!

A number of years ago, my friend Stella and I would often buddy up when vending at local art fairs or even travel out of state together for multi-day music festivals. It was definitely a super fun lifestyle I decided to give up when I went to grad school and then moved to Hawai’i, however it was something I always hoped I could get back into lightly here and there. Luckily enough for me, Stella wound up having an extra pass for a festie she’s working this weekend in LaFayette, GA and invited me to come along!

Even luckier for me, she invited me to bring a little art along to place in the booth so I figured I’d pull out my fab fern stash, grab a few nice frames from the thrift store, and whip up a few Pressed Fern Compositions!

These are a mix of ferns found in Hawai’i, Florida, and Tennessee. I love that you can really find ferns in almost every climate, and that even though many look similar, there are literally thousands of varieties worldwide.

Wanna know what makes a fern a fern? It’s not actually the shape we all associate with it, which is what I thought for years. It just means that the seeds are located on the underside of the leaves, rather than it producing flowers. That’s it. So many different shaped leaves could all actually be ferns. Neato, huh?!?

So wish my ferns and I luck! This will be the first time I’m bringing this type of creation out into the public world, I hope people like them! The great news is that no matter what happens sales-wise, three days of outdoor music is gonna be exactly what this no-longer-quarantined Bird needs!

5.26.2021

BiG Announcement on YouTube Live Today!

Don’t worry, change is a good thing!

5.24.2021

Much To-Do in the Nest this Week

Real quick just wanted to pop on with some updates…

💥 Make sure you’re tuning in to my Instagram Stories @caleighbirdart starting Monday because I’m running another multi-day poll to learn all about how you interact with social biz with your art/art biz.

💥I’ve got a big announcement coming out on my YouTube channel tomorrow, and I’m most likely going to do it live so be there at 1pm EST/4pmPST for the chance to ask questions and interact with me in real time!!

💥I’ve got my Birds of a Feather monthly letter coming out this weekend and if you’re not subscribed you should be because that’s where I share the most personal side of being a working artist in this modern day. Look to right of this bog post for the sign-up to get the inside scoop on all the exciting happenings in the Nest (both figuratively and literally!).

Have a fabulous Saturday Chickadees!

Tiny Finch Family in the Studio Nest!

About 10 days ago I started noticing a pair of teeny tiny birds perching and loudly discussing all sorts of important things upon a golden pothos house plant I had hanging on my porch for watering day. At the end of the day I noticed a few thoughtfully placed sticks tucked into my plant, which gave me a little inkling of what was to come.

Day one nest building

Beautiful and sturdy by day three!

photo not mine

Within just three days there was a beautiful and sturdy built little nest on my potted pothos. And now the treat of watching this little bird family grow has been one of the most exciting things to witness over this past week!

The dad has a lovey red shade to him (of course mama is brown - ugh, such is the animal kingdom XD ) and with a little online search I have discovered they are called House Finches and are well known for creating nests for their tiny blue eggs on porch plants (and being ridiculously cute!).

It’s hard for me to get a good pic, especially of both of them. Here’s dad on my plant with mom tucked in her nest and a better pic I found. online.

It was very interesting to see mama bird lay one egg every day for five eggs days. I had always assumed birds lay their eggs all in one day, but the comparison of her tiny size to these eggs makes a lot more sense that she could only form one at a time. I’ve done a little research and it looks like their eggs take around two weeks to hatch.

Stay tuned in my Instagram Stories to see all the little squawking babies soon!

5.20.2021

Black Lives Still Matter - Resources for Racism Education

Today I’m bringing you a wealth of knowledge on one of the most important, yet most difficult to discuss, topics plaguing the American dream - systematic racism. Until we not only learn from the past but learn to see the racism between the lines and just under the surface, we will never be able to succeed in banishing unfair and unjust treatment of Black people here in this county or in the rest of the world.

Perhaps you saw my post a few weeks ago about why I felt compelled to create this drawing of Duante Wright’s grandmother. Today while I demo this, and another easily recognizable fallen brother in the Black Lives Matter movement, I’m sharing a plethora of podcasts all about the Black experience both historically as well as contemporarily which you can enjoy enlightening yourself with while working in your own studio.

Here are the podcasts I mention in the video

1619 by The New York Times

‘Policing in America’ by Throughline

Louder Than a Riot

‘How Jacob Loud’s Land Was Lost’ by Planet Money

‘Rethinking Black Wealth’ by Planet Money

‘Reproducing Racism’ by Reveal

‘Tuskegee Syphilis Study’ by American Scandal

‘The Immortal Cells of Henrietta Lacks’ by Rebecca Skloot (book)

‘Henrietta Lacks’ by Black History Club

’Henrietta Lacks’ by Babes of Science

‘The Real Black Panthers’ by Throughline

‘Monumental Lies’ by Reveal

Nice White Parents by The New York Times

‘Black Parents Take Control, Teachers Strike Back’ by Codeswitch

Please let me know if you find this post useful and will be listening to a few of these recommendations. Also, if you have any great resources to add please do!!

5.11.2021

Shenandoah Campout Adventure

Last week I treated myself to six glorious nights camping out in Vaughn the Adventure Van including four night in Shenandoah National Park. My awesome adventure buddy Baila joined me for three days and nights of hiking, exploring, eating delicious food, and living it up with the most tame wildlife ever!

While Virginia is well known for its bears, we didn’t see any on this trip (although I have here before!). We did see lots of deer up close, a snake, some rabbits, and birds galore!!

Our favorite hike, called Bearfence Trail, actually turned out to be the most rock-scrambliest hike I’ve done since Hawai’i. It felt so wonderful to stretch to workout all those good climbing muscles again!

Venkman and Amaris also had a lot to catch up on, and really appreciated being included on a few adventures!

Those 360 views on the top of our hikes were truly spectacular! We also loved relaxing to the sun setting over the entire Shenandoah Valley, just sitting in the van like a cozy sofa.

And the wouldn’t you know it, but the two friends I met up with in Shenandoah were actually friends I made in Hawai’i! Baila was my neighbor and hiking buddy in Palolo, and my other friend Scott (who came out for one afternoon with his girl) was someone I actually got a job for at my beloved Coffee Talk. What a small world - I head over to Virginia to hang out with friends from da’ aina - ha!

It did rain little bit, bet we were well prepared. And it did get pretty cold on out last night, but nothing our giggles couldn’t keep us warm in. All in all, it was a pretty epic way to spend a week!

5.12.2021

Attempting a 30 Day Figure Drawing Challenge

“Attempting” being the key word there - ha!

Totally on a whim on April 1st I decided to challenge myself to create a figure drawing every day for 30 days straight. I say on a whim because as of March 31 I had no plans to do a challenge, but when I enjoyed creating a figure drawing so much that very next day, I thought ‘why not?’ Just do it.

In the first couple of days I actually asked my Instagram followers if anyone had attempted any kind of 30 day art challenge in the past, and if so, what were the results. I honestly didn’t get a lot of positive responses, as in, most people either had been too intimidated to try, or they didn’t have much success when they did.

Which is kind of why I had never tried one myself!

This challenge wound up being pretty successful in my opinion. I only missed two days of drawing and I allowed myself a little wiggle room as far as doing two days of drawing at the Picasso exhibit, and three of the days were spent working on a figure painting I had previously started. I also had a little more time this month for drawing than I have in the past 6+ months so I wanted to seize that opportunity too.

Here’s a few pics from the beginning of the month, or you can see them all in order on my Instagram @caleighbirdart.

If you decided to try an art challenge too, either like mine with a personal challenge, or an official prompted one like Inktober, please let me know how it goes either here or in the video comments.

And last but not least, if you are interested in acquiring an original figure drawing I have them available at especially good rates this month to coincide with this challenge. Visit my Shop here.

5.2.2021

Picasso Figures Exhibit at the Frist Museum

I recently had the wonderful opportunity to see about 80 original Pablo Picasso figure works at an international traveling art exhibit here in Nashville, TN at the Frist Museum. It was a truly incredible collection dating from the late 1890s when Picasso was a teenager all the way up to 1970 just a few years before his death.

Combining this super special opportunity with even more knowledge I've picked up teaching my art history class made this an unusually inspiring and illuminating art show (that I actually couldn't help but visit twice!).

I hope you enjoy this visit, and my own personal anecdotal 'Favorite Picasso Ever' story! And I hope I can encourage you to go see original art in person whenever possible as well, whether by a big name like Picasso or by your own local artists:)

4.25.2021

First Semester Success Teaching at Nossi!

Squeeee my first teacher gift as an instructor at Nossi College of Art here in Nashville, Tennessee! We discussed the Fibonacci Sequence in my Design Composition class and one of my students told me she could not resist getting it for me when she saw it at a shop - how sweet!!

As the semester drew to a close, it was so meaningful to have a few students tell me I was their favorite teacher and that they wished they were taking more classes from me. (Literally bursting!) Having this dream come true of teaching higher education and getting such a meaningful response from students, has been surreal.

Such stunning talent!

One student especially told me that my art history class made history more understandable and exciting than any history class she’s ever taken. She told me she normally struggled with it but learning history through art, (which is personally my favorite way to do so!) helped bring alive the stories and events better than she had in any previous class. I can’t think of a more incredible ‘thank you’ at the end of the semester than hearing that as she gave me a shy hug after the final exam.

Swipe to see a few positively amazing paintings done by my Color Theory students. I seriously cannot believe some of these kids were in high school only a year ago!

I also organized my first class field trip to the Nashville Parthenon which was a big hit! I’ll definitely be back with more students in the future, what a fantastic local resource!

Sending a big ‘Thank You!’ to Nossi for allowing me this inspiring and enlightening opportunity to join this happy community of super knowledgeable teachers and incredibly enthusiastic students!Yay!

Yep, even teachers feel relief on the last day of class - ha!

4.22.2021

Real Time Figure Drawing Demo

Aloha friends! Today I'm bringing you a real time figure drawing demo as part of my 30 Day Figure Drawing Challenge, which I tried to do live week before last but YT deleted it almost as soon as I was finished - I think because my drawing reference photo was viewable (even though I thought it was a 'safe' one!).

Anyway, this one is far more concise since I did edit out little things like erasing mistakes and swapping out materials, plus this figure is only a back so I won’t get flagged for sharing my reference photo.

As far as this 30 day challenge goes, I decided to do it to help get myself back in the groove of figure drawing. Since covid has shut down so many open studio figure drawing sessions I haven’t had the opportunity to draw from life in over a year and I’m missing it terribly! I can feel myself getting rusty so I wanted to get back on the saddle and slip back into my comfort zone.

If you would like more info on getting your own handmade-with-love toned (or white) paper sketchbook pop over here to be kept in the loop for my next sketchbook release.

Materials I use to draw (any purchase through my special links helps my channel at no cost to you so thank you!):

White Chalk Pencil

Parisian Blue Carbothello Pastel

Kneaded Eraser

Mono Zero Eraser

4.18.2021