Brother, can you spare a bird?

I have a new project which involves drawing animals (and other things). I did this little guy yesterday. I've been teaching Kate to say "chickadee-dee-dee!" She's got the "dee-dee-dee" part down pretty well. And when we were outside the other day we saw a real chickadee, so she got to make the connection.

I had this idea just a little while ago and immediately started searching for photos on pbase and contacting people to ask if I could use their pictures. It's been a real pleasure to converse with these talented, generous people who share a love of nature and the visual image, and I've been thrilled by responses from people like Tom Robbins and Greg Lavaty, who said I could use any of their photos that I want (as long as I credit them and let them know which ones I use). They have so many wonderful, gorgeous pictures. It's seriously like being a kid in a candy store. (Check them out! The chickadee is Tom's.)

I posted this on Two Peas not long ago:

Five reasons why digital designing is better than drawing pencil portraits

• I don't have to make sure my hands are completely clean and dry before I start working.
• I can eat (and drink) while I'm doing it.
• It's not such a big deal if my daughter jostles my elbow in the middle of something.
• I don't have to worry about the post office losing or damaging my designs.
• Two words: undo button!

So now I'm designing and drawing. This should be a bit less stressful than doing portraits, though. At least that's the plan. The chickadee only took me a couple of hours, which is promising. (And we got our scanner hooked back up, finally! Yay! It's been in a box since the move.)

Things have been going well at ndisb--over 200 people have downloaded my firefly sample tag, and about 30 have actually bought the kit. Off to a good start!