Hello! I hope your week was a good one and that 2018 is going well. Today I will be sharing some prints I’ve been working on and showing off some awesome photography from my friend Jerica. She came over and took some photos of me printing a while ago and I was waiting for a good time to share them.

Jerica Arnold is the owner of Stella + G Photography and lives in Denton, Texas. I have known her and her husband for almost five years now. She was Liz’s (my sister in law) roommate and best friend in college.
I met her through my brother and Liz and we all have been friends since. She is a lifestyle photographer and has an amazing eye for capturing emotions and telling a story of the person she shoots. What I most enjoy about her photos is that she really captures the depth of the person she’s shooting. Printmaking is very gritty and hands on. Ink fills the air, you can hear the ink crackle when rolling it out and the smoothness of the paper when transferring a print. In Jerica’s photo, you can get a sense of that. Here you can see photos of my materials and tools, the printing table, and my printing in progress. It captures the story of printing and gives you a glimpse of what is like being a printer. While I was printing she basically told me to just do my thing then she walked around me capturing the printing process. You can look through her photos below. You can check out her website www.stellagphotography.com and follow
her on Instagram www.instagram.com/stellagphoto/

The print shown in the photoshoot is a small 3.5-inch circle winter wren print. It was the first print in a series songbirds. I have been wanting to do something with songbirds because they are my favorite type of birds. For these prints, I chose to keep it small and simple. I was inspired by some stamp arts and icons. Like so many of my prints I go in and add color after drying. I did some experimenting with how to color them. I was wanting to expand beyond watercolor and try something new. I colored a few with just some colored pencil and really liked it, I tried some with pastel and liked the smoothness it gave. I ended up combining the two and doing a light background color in pastel and coloring the bird in color pencil. I have done three more since starting this series.

The birds from left to right are: top left in frame, Yellowthroat warbler, top right in frame, Golden-crowned Kinglet. Bottom left, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Black Capped Chickadee, Winter Wren, Yellowthroat Warbler. — The birds from left to right are: top left in frame, Yellowthroat warbler, top right in frame, Golden-crowned Kinglet. Bottom left, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Black Capped Chickadee, Winter Wren, Yellowthroat Warbler.

Before I l sign off, I have a couple announcements. My online shop is up! You can check it out in the menu bar under shop. I also have an Etsy shop up you can find that here www.etsy.com/shop/MountainBirdStudio. It would mean a lot if you could check them out and share them with a friend : ] Also if you would like to stay updated on all that’s happening with me and my work you can subscribe to emails below. You can also follow me on Instagram for my latest work in progress. you can find the link below too. Thank you for reading, be sure to give Jerica a shout out and I will be back shortly,

Bryan.