Bird Plus Bird

Oops it's been 2 months since I posted a blog update, how did that happen?! Leading up to Christmas I will no doubt have more to talk about, I'm starting to think about next years calendars and not sure yet what direction I'm going to go in but I need to get on to it pretty soon! Winters are usually pretty slow sales wise, so I take the opportunity to get myself inspired and start creating some new products. I've been drawing up a storm, using my photos as reference (as always) and have built up a collection of drawings that I am quite proud of. I am turning these drawings into prints some separately but mostly as collections, they are inspired by vintage educational-style prints of birds.

Mohoua are a group of tiny birds consisting of Whiteheads, Yellowheads and Brown Creepers. All these birds feed in flocks, as they scour the trees and forest floor for grubs and insects. I see Whiteheads at Zealandia, and was lucky enough to see Yellowheads and Brown Creepers on Ulva Island when I visited Stewart Island earlier in the year. Yellowheads in particular are very rare so it was a truly special experience seeing them.

I made this print of Tui and Bellbirds from seeing them in my own backyard and as Zealandia as well. Tui are really popular icons so I hope people like this print!

I couldn't leave out my favourite little forest birds, Robins and Tomtits, I enjoyed making this little collection of the tiny birds, the female Tomtits add a tiny bit of colour, and the South Island varieties of both birds have slightly yellow-er chests.

I have plans to print some greeting cards and wrapping paper with a montage of all the birds, and I quite like how they look all together, with the different shapes, sizes and colours. People often say to me that our birds are boring, and I'm determined to prove them wrong, there are so many colours in our birds, although some are subtle I think our birds are unique, quirky and awesome!

Also I should mention that I have changed my name, with the word 'society' at the end of my name people were getting confused that I was only one person behind the 'brand', so I've changed my name to 'Bird Plus Bird'. It's simple and (hopefully) easier to remember. And it kind of hints at the fact that I'm a 'bird' and I am always adding birds to things, I'm also embarrassingly terrible at maths, so the only kind of adding I'm good at is adding birds!

The next blog post will hopefully be about my new greeting cards, I really hope to get some stockists, I still feel like this year hasn't really started for me, but I've been enjoying the downtime nonetheless. I better get started on those calendars too, I have so many things on my to-do list, I really need to start ticking some of those things off!