Amazing Art Journals

Well, I haven't been on this blog much lately. In part because I've been painting a lot, but also because I've been writing in my personal art journal. I was thinking today about the different forms a journal could take. I decided to look on Etsy to see if anyone had created a cool journal. The artists on Etsy did not disappoint! Here are a few neat ones I found:

The Steampunk Census Journal

The Evil Eye Journal

The Poppy Journal

The Hammer Journal

The Rustic Gate Art Book

The Mini Journal you can wear as a necklace

The Hand Painted Coat of Arms Journal

The Fearless Sun Altered Art Journal

I could go on and on! There are so many magnificent journals out there. I'm writing in a pretty standard one now, but I would feel the pressure to write something pretty special in one of these. :) So does anyone else journal or sketch out ideas in a book?

I just finished a new painting!

 "Sweet Breeze"

5 x 7 inch acrylic painting on stretched canvas.

Shadow the cat looks up at the girl holding him as her hair gently moves in the breeze. There are warm colors in the sky as the sun sets behind them.


I'm pretty happy with how this painting turned out and I see myself experimenting more with this style. This character, or girls who look like her will probably appear in more of my future paintings.


I listed this painting for sale in the following places:


Etsy Listing
Bonanza Listing
For bid on Ebay


In other news, today I bought the domain name hintofspirit.com and have directed it to this blog. So it will now be slightly quicker to get here. :)

More about "The Birds" from my other blog

Since I already wrote a little here about my feelings watching "The Birds" I thought I'd add something I wrote about this movie in my other blog. My other blog has a Halloween theme and can be found here: http://justineshalloween.blogspot.com 

Here is more of what I had to say about "The Birds":

I can see why this movie is a classic! Hitchcock took something so everyday as a flock of birds and made me think of them as little murderers! I think the most frightening things are the believable ones, and a flock of crazed birds is much more believable to me than a classic movie monster.

Tippi Hedren runs from some crazy crows

I ran across this awesome Barbie version of Tippi Hedren - complete with birds! It's pretty funny because some of the people I watched this movie with commented that Tippi looked like a Barbie doll!

I wanted to learn more about this movie, so I googled "Trivia from The Birds" to find a little info...Turns out there is a lot of info! So here are a few of my favorite pieces of trivia:

1.) Tippi Hedren's daughter is Melanie Griffith!

2.) Tippi wore six identical green outfits through the filming since her clothing got so beat up (on account of those killer birds scratching at her).

3.) To get the seagulls to fly into the camera, ground beef was put on top of the lens and the gulls would swoop in to eat it. 

4.) Most of the birds used in the long shots of the birds perching were cardboard cutouts or stuffed birds. Live birds were interspersed with the fake birds to give the scene some movement and make the fake birds look alive.

5.) Suzanne Pleshette who plays the school teacher in The Birds, would go on to play Bob's wife on The Bob Newhart Show.

6.) This film had an all electronic soundtrack. (Meaning an all synthesised sound with no real instruments).

7.)  In real life, on August 18th of 1961, residents in the town of Capitola, California, awoke to find Sooty Shearwater birds (similar to Sea Gulls) slamming into their rooftops.  Their streets were covered with dead birds. News reports suggested shellfish poisoning as the cause. According to a local newspaper, the Santa Cruz Sentinel, Alfred Hitchcock requested news copy in 1961 to use as "research material for his latest thriller".

The following video clip, in my opinion, is the most eerie part of this movie! I think what makes me feel so uneasy is the tension being built up gradually.

Crows on the Playground
The Birds at MOVIECLIPS.com

I saw "The Birds" for the first time last night

Tippi Hedren in a promo pic for the movie

Last night I went to an Alfred Hitchcock themed party where we watched three of his movies. We saw "The Rear Window" "Dial M for Murder" and "The Birds".

I had already seen the first two movies multiple times but I had never seen "The Birds." I suppose this is because my mom always told me stories about how much this movie terrified her. Anyway, I think the movie really held up as scary after all these years! 

Watching flocks of birds terrorize a town was strange since I really like birds! It was especially weird to see crows being so mean, since I have been focusing on painting them so much lately. One of the main characters in my paintings is a crow! So it was a weird new association for me. The bird attacks never were explained in the movie and it had sort of an uneasy ending. I expected to be freaked out the next time I saw even one bird fly by, but I wasn't alarmed today when I saw a few crows. I guess my positive feelings won out...Still it was a great movie! 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Wishes of luck from Spirit! :)

Introducing Spirit and Shadow

I will be writing in this blog about my newest series of paintings. I'm excited to begin painting this set of characters. I'm focusing on a crow named Spirit and a black cat named Shadow. Let me introduce them to you :)

 Shadow the cat

 Spirit the Raven

Spirit, Shadow, and a friend

So far I am selling original paintings, art prints, and aceos of these characters. My next plan is to work on some jewelry. I am selling my art on Etsy, Ebay, and Bonanza.