Exciting news for Miss Magpie Designs!

A couple of weeks ago I got an email from one of the feature writers at Etc. magazine asking whether I would do an interview for them as they were interested in doing a feature on my work.  I'm quite familiar with Etc. (a complimentary magazine that is part of the West Sussex County Times) and have seen some lovely features in previous issues about local artists, craftspeople etc. (ha!) so naturally I was extremely excited to be asked!

As they were aiming for publication in the August issue, it had to happen quite quickly to work with the deadlines so I answered some questions via email then had a photographer visit last week to take some pictures of me at work. The latter was interesting as it meant I had to have a HUGE tidy up of my work space, which is at one end of my bedroom (no studio just yet, maybe one day...)

Quite conveniently, I happened to have a portrait in progress on my drawing board so that made it much easier for me to 'pretend' I was drawing for the photos and I think it will help to show a little of my process in the article. I can't wait to get a copy of the issue and see the piece although I'm quite nervous at the same time; especially having my photo in there! Hopefully it will provide a little local advertising for me as I have a reasonable online presence but not too much locally at the moment.

If you live in the Sussex area, make sure to keep your eyes peeled for Etc. in August and let me know what you think!

Tis the season to get fledging!

After all the built-up excitement around our two nesting bird families, the nuthatches and blue tits, I had to come to the conclusion over the past couple of weeks that the chicks have now already fledged. I wasn't fortunate enough to catch the event as it happened and I suspect this will be because the parents chose a very early morning when the garden would have been much quieter and therefore safer for the fledglings. As disappointing as this realisation was, I still feel very fortunate to have witnessed the activity that I did. Seeing the nuthatches excavate their nest hole and patch it up with mud; watching the blue tits pulling tufts of cat and horse hair into the nestbox; hearing both blue tit and nuthatch chicks chirping away whenever a parent bird arrived with a wriggling grub in their beak. This is behaviour that I've never been lucky enough to see before and for that reason, I feel very fortunate.

That said, this past week or so has made up for the lack of fledging activity as the garden has played host to a variety of species, young and old. For a while, during the nesting period, it all went very quiet out there and if the nuthatches and tits hadn't been nesting, I think it would have been a rather dull few weeks, bird-wise! Understandably, during that time, all breeds of adult birds are very much occupied by the important task of raising a brood of chicks, something that doesn't allow for much lesiure time to visit feeders. I have noticed now that the garden has come alive again. It's absolutely bursting with life, including all our usual suspects; robins, blue, coal and marsh tits, blackbirds, dunnocks, chaffinches, woodpigeons, nuthatches, great tits and great spotted woodpeckers. Those last two are the most exciting to me, as it hasn't only been the adults I've spotted!

At one point maybe a fortnight ago, I noticed one rather scruffy-looking great tit pecking around on the grass, watched very closely by an adult. The bedraggled bird still had some of it's downy chick feathers attached and it was very yellow. Several days after this and daily since, the feeding station has been bustling with a flock of juvenile great tits, maybe eight or nine of them, all still with a yellow tinge but well-developed and the same size as their parents. They all stay close together, choosing to huddle in the surrounding trees and jostle for space on the feeders. There is a lot of chasing too and once one or two take off, the rest seem to follow quite quickly!

We are certainly no strangers to the woodpeckers in our garden. It is a daily occurrence to see at least one of them on the peanuts, but more likely we will see both the male and female on separate visits throughout the day. Occasionally they visit together which is a wonderful sight. This week though they have been joined by a juvenile and I have assumed that it is their chick, although I know that there is more than one pair of woodpeckers in our area. It was instantly recognisable by the nearly all-red cap and rather sandy coloured belly feathers. The behaviour too, especially when it was joined by one of it's parents, was a very good indication that this was a recently-fledged juvenile. When I first spotted it, the adult male was also there and the juvenile hung from the top of the feeder waiting to be fed by the adult. 

I took this picture at the end of May and since then, the red cap has started to fade towards the back. All three of the woodpeckers are certainly making good use of the peanuts as they are almost permanently hanging from them. Frequently,  I see both the juvenile and one of the adults together on the feeding station and on a few occasions I have seen all three of them together in the garden. One of these moments looked like it could have been a flying lesson for the juvenile as it was hopping from trunk to fence and then flying low across the garden. 

They have such a distinguishing call as well that I quite often hear them before I see them! I often remind myself of how lucky we are to have woodpeckers visiting. I know our rural location is the reason we get such a wide variety of visitors and I never take this for granted.

Franken-dog!

I was asked to draw a lovely staffie/boxer cross called Cassie who sadly passed away recently. The customer Vicky provided a wide range of photographs but there was one in particular that she liked and wanted me to base the portrait from. It showed Cassie in a classic pose that captured her personality and included her feet, which was an important factor for Vicky.

As you can see, it's a wonderful expression but the photo itself is slightly washed out and not a true representation of Cassie's colouring. I decided I would have to do a little 'patching' so to speak, and take sections from the other photos to create a truer representation.

I used the above photo as my main reference for the colours and also took several of the facial features, such as the eyes and nose, from another provided image, then 'patched' these onto the original photo to create a more realistic version of Cassie's face, giving me more detail to work from. This is what I ended up with:

You can also see I have grafted on a new foot on the right as in the original photo, it was folded under and would have looked like a stump in the portrait! I couldn't help thinking of this new version of Cassie as "Franken-dog" every time I looked at it! 

Sometimes one photograph just isn't enough and I do have to refer to several, but being able to take parts from several images and patch them together is really helpful for me and I think that the final portrait turned out well for it; at least, I hope it did! 

**Artwork is Copyright of Emily Summers 2014. Please do not reproduce**

New work and jumping out of my comfort zone!

I recently completed this commission of a beautiful white horse. It was only the second horse I have drawn since starting MMD; the first was a birthday gift for my friend last year. My most common subjects are of the canine variety, with cats coming a close second, but I certainly don't feel that the dogs hold me in a particular comfort zone. Yes I draw a lot of them but they are all different; different breeds, colours, long and short fur etc. etc. so I never consider myself to be drawing the same subject over and over by any means.

Having said that, it was definitely a refreshing change to draw Ollie. I have become very much accustomed to the shape of a dog's face; the direction of the fur around the muzzle; the fold of the ears; the shape of the big pink tongues! Drawing a horse is a whole new experience as they are such a different shape! Most noticeably the long, long face ending in large nostrils and with two eyes very far apart, there are very little similarities between drawing a dog and a horse, perhaps apart from the sparkle in their eyes.

I'm hoping to receive more horse commissions in the future but even better would be rabbits, chickens or even lizards! That would be GREAT fun!

Birding update-the last few weeks!

I've been pretty darn busy these past few weeks! My waiting list for portraits is lengthy so I've been working non-stop on new pieces and barely had time to think about blogging let alone actually doing it! Having said that, I have managed to squeeze some birding in here and there, including a couple of exciting spots (for me anyway!)

I paid a visit to one of my local country parks, Buchan, during April after reading that their female great-crested grebe had finally joined the male there on Douster Pond. I had never seen one before so thought it would be the perfect opportunity to tick another species off my bird list and if I was lucky, catch them doing their infamous mating dance. I wasn't disappointed!

I only caught a small snippet of the dance, but it was enough to see them shaking their heads and swimming away and back in a perfect mirror-image of one another. I was really, really pleased to have seen it. They certainly are beautiful birds, particularly the russet colouring around their heads.

I also enjoyed watching this cormorant busy himself with lots of diving to the bottom of the pond. Trying to catch a photo of him when he kept disappearing was a challenge; I had to try and predict where he would resurface next! Alongside the grebes and cormorant were coots, moorhens with four very new chicks, canada geese, foraging blackbirds and mallards. Buchan had mentioned on their Facebook page that they also had Mandarin ducks on the pond, but sadly I couldn't find these. I wish I had as they are another species I haven't seen before! 

 We've had further visits to our garden from goldfinches this month which I am thrilled about. If only they would invite their friends along; the most I've ever seen is four but usually I'll only spot two on the feeder.

Last month I went on a long walk through the countryside. We followed footpaths we'd never walked before and discovered fields and tracks we never knew were there. Best of all, we heard the first cuckoo of the year, a day before it is traditionally heard! What an unmistakable call; I don't quite know how anyone can possible mistake it for a wood pigeon. I also spotted a blackcap on that walk and plenty of butterflies including orange-tips, small tortoiseshells and peacocks.

The blue tits have officially nested in our new nestbox. I collected fur taken from our cats' brush and some hair dropped by the passing horses on our lane and put it out for the birds; it was extremely popular and was carried away by the tits very quickly. It was wonderful to see them with beaks full of fur and knowing that their nest would be the cosiest in the neighbourhood!

Both the blue tits and the nuthatches have recently started carrying insects into their nests. It's hard to tell the parents apart but after reading up on their nesting habits, I've decided it's a bit too early for their eggs to have hatched (I certainly haven't heard any chicks cheeping) so the food must be from the male feeding the female as she incubates the eggs. I'm greatly anticipating the day when the chicks fledge!

New season, new pond.

During late summer of last year, inspired by the RSPB's "Homes for Nature" campaign, I installed a mini pond in our garden. As we live in a rental property, I wasn't able to commit to a full-size pond (one day I will though! It's one of my dreams) so I used an unused cat litter tray as a base and edged it with rocks. It served well as a small source of water for the birds mainly but aside from a toad I found nearby and some fly and mosquito larvae, it wasn't particularly successful at attracting wildlife.

Last week, we had visitors to the house who were accompanied by some rather energetic young children. Unfortunately these children were rather handsy and I found out after they had left that one of them had picked up the rocks edging the pond and dropped them from a height into the water, cracking the bottom of the tray and draining all the water away. Let me tell you, I would be ten times more angry about this if I'd had any wildlife occupying it! Still, I was a little peeved but it actually have me the perfect opportunity to build a better one from scratch.

I was only able to make the hole slightly wider as there are large tree roots either side which I definitely had no intention of destroying. I extended it further outwards and made a shallow sloping ledge to allow any wildlife to easily get in and out. I also made the center of the hole deeper. 

I included two oxygenating plants; ivy-leafed crowfoot and cotton bud rush. I'm hoping these will not only help to prevent algae from growing but, as they are both flowering plants, they will attract insects. I've also arranged a group of paddlestones around the front to create some hidey holes and piles of pebbles at the deepest part of the pond. 

It looks a lot more pond-like now in comparison to the litter tray version! It will take a few days for the water to naturalise as I didn't have any rainwater to use but once it has, I'm looking forward to seeing if any local critters fancy moving in. At the very least, the birds will be happy to have their drinking/bathing station all spruced up! 

April brings intruders!

The nuthatches have been toiling away non-stop these past few weeks to prepare their nesting hole. I have really loved watching them working so hard and it's now easy to see the result of their work as the hole in the oak tree is visibly 2/3 smaller and dried with mud. I've managed to spot them a few times coming in with beaks of dried leaves which they will be using to line the base of the nest, creating a soft bed for their eggs.

Today I witnessed the reason for all of that hard work closing the hole.

I have to say, this is the first time the jackdaws have visited our back garden. They are quite frequently out on the big front lawn (which actually belongs to the 'big house'; we are a gate lodge) but I've certainly never seen them venture into the back. I guess they've found something interesting enough to tempt them in!

I'm in a bit of a dilemma over this. As far as I know, the nuthatches haven't yet laid their eggs; they were still bringing in leaves and mud yesterday so I'm only assuming this is the case. Once they do, however, I'm sure the jackdaws will be back to stick their beaks in and cause trouble and I really hate the thought that they might actually cause harm to the birds or their eggs. I know it's nature and you shouldn't interfere but it's pretty damn hard when you've watched these birds work hard to build a safe place to nest. I'll be keeping a very sharp eye on the situation.

Photos snapped this morning after refilling the tray with black sunflowers.

In other news, I have seen the blue tits go into the nestbox several times carrying bits of twig and straw in their beaks, so I think I can venture to say that they have started nesting in there-hooray! It's still no guarantee they will actually lay eggs but the signs are all positive so watch this space!