Playing with feathers

I have always loved feathers. As a child I would collect all the feathers I found and stick them in around my mirror in my bed room. I don't know what eventually happened to all of them. I'm sure my mother had a field day when I left for college throwing them all out. I still love feathers. Since loosing both my mother and my eldest son in recent years past, I feel a special connection to feathers that happen to be in my path, as I think it is their way of keeping in touch with me.

I had recently been inspired by the talented Linda Barrett of a feather she had photographed with water droplets on it. Linda not only is wonderful photographer but she also is a bookbinder and crafty in many ways. She knows of my attachment to feathers and is generous with her findings along her way.

Here is her picture:

I have drawn feathers in the past but it has been some time and I have never drawn one with a water droplet. So I have been practicing, practicing, practicing. 

Here are some of my attempts:

And then I think I got it:

Thank you Linda for the inspiration. I feel very relaxed when doing these drawings. It might be the beginning os a series!

Challenge #114 "Stars

It has been some time since I have posted and much has happened.  The worst and foremost being the bomb explosion at the Boston Marathon, Monday April 15th.  I live in the city and can see the finish line from my condo so I usually don't put myself in the middle of the crowds, as I prefer to walk a city street unchallenged.  Boston has been transformed overnight and my heart now understands just a little bit better how New York felt after 9/11.

With this challenge of Stars my mind goes to those that lost their lives and limbs in this twisted event and also to our "star" whom my family lost almost 2 years ago now, our son and brother, Austin, who lost his life to Leukemia in May 2011 at the age of 24.  I know what it is like to loose someone you love very quickly and thinking prior to this, that nothing like this would never happen to us. Sometimes it does.

Feathers, CO2 (my stars)

In the aftermath of the bombing on Tuesday our youngest son, Dylan joined my husband, dog and I on a walk along the Esplanade to smell the blooming Magnolia trees and get away from the helicopters and sirens that now rule the city.  On our walk along the Charles River, with it's pleasant views and the comfort of being close to one another,  I had looked down twice as a feather was at the tip of my shoe.  Looking back, one was black the other white. Good and Evil?  We are birds of the same feather.  I see these feathers as messages from my departed son.  Be good to one another!