January

January has been a weird month. I needed time to relax and have a holiday and get over the years of stress I had built up in my system. But I'm not very good at doing nothing so I've been doing a lot of bird watching and a bit of illustrating during the day and generally spending the evenings on the couch with two favourite beings (boyfriend and cat) .

Black Robin Illustrations - for an upcoming series of Greeting Cards that I'm working on.

February is going to be a good month. I am setting myself some daily challenges/tasks and by the end of the month I aim to have a body of work that I am proud of. I am always making excuses of why I don't do this or that and I feel this year it's now or never. I've got 2 days to decide on my challenges but it's going to be something like this: every day I will complete one pattern of various motifs, one pattern of one repeated motif and one simple/abstract single bird illustration. It's kind a huge ask and I may narrow it down but I want to see what I can achieve.

My pottery course is going so great. I threw my first pot on the wheel - it didn't turn out how I wanted it to but it's a real pot! I promise I will share photos when I've actually fired and glazed the things I've been making. Ceramics has always been a mysterious subject to me and I have loved learning about it, and can't wait to get my hands dirtier and make some pieces, I have so many ideas!

Here are some birds I've seen lately - all photos taken by me at Zealandia EcoSanctuary.

Male Hihi/Stitchbird.

Red-Crowned Kakariki

Juvenile North Island Robin.

North Island Tieke/Saddleback.