Birds of a Feather

Last week I carved a new stamp of a little bird for the GPP Street Team Crusade #18 - Cut It Out. (http://www.michelleward.typepad.com/how_cool_is_that/)
I used it to make a new entry in one of my on-going projects - My Bird Book. I looked for quotes about birds, bird sayings, and wrote a list of some "bird" memories from different times in my life and have set out to fill this altered book with them whenever the mood strikes.

Rumi Bird :
Here is my most recent entry which includes my little bird stamp. I also used my newly carved tropical leaf stamp to do the background on the page. The photo is of me when I was about 18 months old. I love this quote from Rumi. I sometimes feel like I need this reminder to use my soul's wings more often. Playing in my art journalis feels like soul flying to me !

Black Bird :
This is a page dedicated to one of my favorite Beatle songs. I have a teenage memory of a special night when I joined my uncle Nick and his very talented singer friend, Terry, to sing to tourists in the streets of Old Montreal. A very grubby, kind of dirty street performer came to join us in our Beatles tribute and sang "Black Bird" a cappella in the most haunting voice I had ever heard.
Two Little Dickie Birds :
This is a whimisical entry dedicated to a poem my sisters and I knew as kids from Stu, a crazy old friend of my dad's. "Two little dickie birds sitting on a wall. One named Peter, one named Paul. Fly away, Peter. Fly away, Paul. Come back, Peter. Come back, Paul." The birds on this page are actually my husband David at 6 months (left) and his brother Richard (Dickie) at 18 months. So very cute !!! The bird shape is actually a die cut from a Cricut machine that I made into a stencil. I also used real feathers for their wings and head pieces.

I find little birds very inspirational, like so many mixed media artists right now. Something about their delicate strength, their ability to sing their song loud and to fly whenever the whim takes them I think.
More Bird Book posts to come as the pages fill.