Well Otari Pop Up has been and gone and I’m happy to say it was a massive success! I always find it funny that months of planning and work is over in the blink of an eye. We got SO lucky with the weather, sunny with light winds (which is super rare in Wellington) and it made the day so great, everyone was happy and smiling and it was just a great day all round!
I want to talk a bit about my calendars a little more in depth than I have already, as I put so much thought into them they deserve a bit of attention. In this post I’m going to focus on my ‘Little Nests’ calendar, which is a colourful collection of 12 illustrations of birds at their nests. When coming up with an idea for this years calendar I had a few ideas, some of which I might explore next year, but the one that I couldn’t get out of my head was the idea of illustrating bird nests. I did some research and there aren’t many contemporary illustrations of native NZ bird nests out there, so I thought it’d make a unique and interesting calendar.
I researched native bird nests and there are so many interesting types, I had to narrow it down so decided to focus on smaller birds. Of course I included some of the birds I always include, like the rare Fairy Tern, Shore Plovers, and Kakī (Black Silt). I chose a mix of birds, including rare ones and more common ones, and birds that nest in a varied range of habitats so there’d be an interesting mix of imagery. I researched what tree species each bird favours to nest in, and also how many eggs they lay and what colour they are. I spent hours and hours researching then planning the composition before starting to illustrate them. Then the illustrations took weeks to create, before I begun to assemble them on the computer. I am really happy with how the calendars came out, they are beautifully printed right here in Wellington with matte inks on recycled paper and I hand bind each one with kraft paper and cotton twine. They are a labour of love and I hope they are well received.
The calendars are currently available for pre-order and I’ll be getting them in shops very soon. Pre-orders are really helpful for me as it gives me time to bind them before shipping them out and helps towards paying the daunting printing bill. Artists don’t often talk about money, but being an independent creative can be very hard at times, upfront printing costs can be really difficult to cover so pre-orders can really be a great way to help!
My Little Nest Calendars come in A4 and A3 - with the A3 having 2 binding options - paper bound or on a wooden hanger, both handmade. Alright that’s enough talk, here are some photos!
