Tile Painting for Joppa Flats

This afternoon, I painted a tile for Mass Audubon’s Joppa Flats Tile Project. Mass Audubon will be decorating the hallways at its Joppa Flats Education Center with ceramic tiles that have been painted by its members and supporters. The tile painting took place at the Pottery Isle Studio in Newburyport. This is a wonderful studio that offers special events, workshops, and “Pottery-to-Go” where you choose a pre-made pottered piece, select your colors (glazes), decorate the piece with your artwork, and return it for professional glazing and firing. What a novel idea!

Once I was settled at the studio, the first thing I needed to do was select artwork to paint on the tile. I flipped through my sketchbook and selected this Chrysanthemum, which I sketched on October 12, 2008.

I was given an unfinished tile to paint (left tile) and a glazed tile that would serve as my palette (right tile).

I had to transfer my Chrysanthemum sketch onto the unfinished tile. I decided to trace my sketch onto the tile to save time and then defined my lines using a Sharpie.

Once my artwork was transferred onto the unfinished tile, I needed to select my colors from an array of glazes.

I decided I wanted a sky blue background so I painted the entire tile with a light blue glaze.

Concerned that the blue would show through the flower colors, I erased some of the glaze off the flower.

I then outlined the petals with a golden yellow glaze.

I began painting the petals in with a light yellow glaze.

I filled in the rest of the flower with golden yellow, russet, and brown glazes.

It will take several days for the tile to be fired and finished.

I will have to wait until Saturday, June 5th to see what my finished tile looks like because that is the day that all of the tiles painted for the Joppa Flats Tile Project will be displayed and made public. I will be sure to update my Blog with photos of my finished tile and the other tiles painted by Mass Audubon members and supporters.

What a fun way to contribute to Mass Audubon’s decorating project! If you are in the area on or after June 5th be sure to stop by the Joppa Flats Education Center to see the Tile Project!

My Chickadee Haiku

One of the people I follow on Twitter is the editor for Wild Bird Magazine. Every once in a while she Tweets a contest to write a poem and today she had a Haiku contest.  You had to use the word “chickadee” in the Haiku so I wrote this:

The feeders are full. I await the chickadees ~ As I would a friend.

I won!

I’ll be receiving this prize: http://www.mainebirdingtrail.com/GuideBook.html

How cool is that!

New Year’s Day Birding ~ 2010

For the past 14 years (hard to believe), Mark and I have led a New Year's Day birding trip for the Brookline Bird Club. Each year we are warmed to see our old friends who have been coming on the trip since year one and look forward to meeting new ones! As usual, we greet everyone at about 9:00AM with sparkling apple cider to toast in the New Year.  As part of our introductions, I like to ask everyone to share their first bird of the year - my first bird of 2010 was a Blue Jay seen feeding at at our feeders.

We usually bird right up to sunset (weather permitting) and cover territory between Newburyport and Cape Ann. This year we birded Salisbury Beach State Reservation, Cashman Park/Merrimac River, Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, and north Plum Island.  Because the birding was good in the Newburyport area, we never made it to Cape Ann!  We tallied 51 species for the Club list but I only saw 44. Here is the complete day list and a few photos of the group:

Red-throated Loon – 2 ; Common Loon – 12; Horned Grebe - 9
Red-necked Grebe – 1; Northern Gannet – 18 ; Great Cormorant – 4
Great-blue Heron – 1; Canada Goose – 500; Brant – 6
American Black Duck – 90; Mallard – 180; Northern Pintail – 5
Common Eider – 350; Surf Scoter – 3; White-winged Scoter – 25
Black Scoter – 2; Oldsquaw – 12; Bufflehead - 40
Common Goldeneye – 18; Red-breasted Merganser – 47
Bald Eagle -1; Northern Harrier – 3; Red-tailed Hawk - 3
Sanderling – 30; Purple Sandpiper – 12; Ring-billed Gull - 90
Herring Gull – 175; Glaucous Gull – 1; Great Black-backed Gull – 35
Razorbill – 65; Black Guillemot – 1

Rock Dove – 250; Mourning Dove – 28; Snowy Owl – 1
Downy Woodpecker – 3; Blue Jay – 37; American Crow – 52

Horned Lark - 22

Black-capped Chickadee – 18; American Robin – 400

Northern Mockingbird – 5; European Starling – 600

American Tree Sparrow – 23; Savannah Sparrow – 7 (5 = Ipswich)

Song Sparrow – 5; Dark-eyed Junco – 8; Lapland Longspur - 1

Snow Bunting – 2; Northern Cardinal – 9

American Goldfinch – 33; House Sparrow - 25

 Happy New Year and Great Birding in 2010!