GracesWarbler Posted August 9, 2022 Author Share Posted August 9, 2022 On 8/4/2022 at 11:24 AM, Aidan B said: @GracesWarbler I have quite a few good photos of both Phainopepla and Vermillion Flycatchers you can use. I also have photos of lots of other birds found in the southwest you as well. https://media.ebird.org/catalog?userId=USER580646&mediaType=photo&sort=rating_rank_desc Thanks, I'll take a look! Here's a new one: A Vermilion Flycatcher. ("Vermilion" seems like it should have another "L" in it!) I also did a new drawing for Northern Rough-Winged Swallows. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GracesWarbler Posted August 14, 2022 Author Share Posted August 14, 2022 Two new pages: Doves (I need to check what species) and a Burrowing Owl. @Aidan Band @Connor Cochrane: I sent you two messages about your photos. I'd like to round out the book with some species I don't have photos of. Thanks! 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GracesWarbler Posted August 16, 2022 Author Share Posted August 16, 2022 I'm most of the way through the drawings for my coloring book, so I started putting things together! Here's the intro page so far. Thoughts? If you have any fascinating trivia for the bird species I've posted so far, feel free to share. I'll be adding a few sentences about each bird, as well as a description of their colors, to the back of each page. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirVive Posted August 18, 2022 Share Posted August 18, 2022 On 8/16/2022 at 4:51 PM, GracesWarbler said: I'm most of the way through the drawings for my coloring book, so I started putting things together! Here's the intro page so far. Thoughts? If you have any fascinating trivia for the bird species I've posted so far, feel free to share. I'll be adding a few sentences about each bird, as well as a description of their colors, to the back of each page. Sounds more natural to me to say Southwestern. Otherwise I like it! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Posted August 18, 2022 Share Posted August 18, 2022 35 minutes ago, SirVive said: Sounds more natural to me to say Southwestern. Otherwise I like it! Much easier for me to say Southwest.?♂️ 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirVive Posted August 19, 2022 Share Posted August 19, 2022 (edited) On 8/18/2022 at 7:59 AM, Kevin said: Much easier for me to say Southwest.?♂️ I doubt there is a 'correct' way - I'm used to 'The Southwest' or even 'The American Southwest' but 'The Southwestern U.S.' Really not sure why unless one is more of a proper noun place name and the other is more with reference to the compass direction. Edited August 19, 2022 by SirVive 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GracesWarbler Posted August 20, 2022 Author Share Posted August 20, 2022 Thanks for the suggestion! Like SirVive mentioned, I tend to think of "the Southwest" as a particular region of the U.S. I'll keep it as-is for now and see if it still sounds natural to me later on. A question: I'm most of the way through the drawings and I'm starting to put the book together now. Is there a good order to put birds in? I may just "wing it" and give them a semi-random order, or I may put the bird in order from smallest to largest. Or is there a nice order to put birds in? I suppose bird guides group birds by type. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GracesWarbler Posted August 21, 2022 Author Share Posted August 21, 2022 Hey. it's a Cactus Wren! I'm starting to put the book together now. I want to add a couple sentences about each bird, as well as a quick description of their colors. Typography and formatting is a neat subject that I wish I knew more about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lonestranger Posted August 21, 2022 Share Posted August 21, 2022 20 hours ago, GracesWarbler said: Is there a good order to put birds in? Alphabetical Family groups(similar to field guide order) Size Habitat Colour (brightest to darkest, least number of colours to the most multiple coloured birds) Angle/placement of bird on the page. (left to right, clockwise) Simplest to most intricate drawing Just a few ideas above but my suggestion would be to mix it up as randomly as possible. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GracesWarbler Posted August 28, 2022 Author Share Posted August 28, 2022 On 8/21/2022 at 5:53 AM, lonestranger said: Alphabetical Family groups(similar to field guide order) Size Habitat Colour (brightest to darkest, least number of colours to the most multiple coloured birds) Angle/placement of bird on the page. (left to right, clockwise) Simplest to most intricate drawing Just a few ideas above but my suggestion would be to mix it up as randomly as possible. Great, thanks for the ideas! I decided to manually order the birds, so they're semi-random. Also, I made a cover! I'll probably keep working on it, but what do you all think? The colors look a bit different here, so I may have to change it further. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GracesWarbler Posted September 11, 2022 Author Share Posted September 11, 2022 The coloring book is coming together. I also made a website! Let me know what you think: https://colorbird.org/ I'll probably add color reference photos for the drawings. Any other suggestions? 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Bird Nuts Posted September 11, 2022 Share Posted September 11, 2022 2 hours ago, GracesWarbler said: The coloring book is coming together. I also made a website! Let me know what you think: https://colorbird.org/ I'll probably add color reference photos for the drawings. Any other suggestions? Very nice website! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirVive Posted September 13, 2022 Share Posted September 13, 2022 The site got another hit from your's truly ? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GracesWarbler Posted September 20, 2022 Author Share Posted September 20, 2022 On 9/11/2022 at 4:37 PM, The Bird Nuts said: Very nice website! On 9/12/2022 at 8:14 PM, SirVive said: The site got another hit from your's truly ? Thanks! Have any of your seen good articles about bird beaks, feathers, or feet/claws? I have three pages in the book about those three topics. I mostly want to talk about the diversity of birds, and maybe highlight one or two interesting examples. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GracesWarbler Posted September 21, 2022 Author Share Posted September 21, 2022 Also, I'm looking for feedback about the book. It's mostly done, but it would be great to get an outside perspective. Anyone want to take a look? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirVive Posted September 21, 2022 Share Posted September 21, 2022 57 minutes ago, GracesWarbler said: Also, I'm looking for feedback about the book. It's mostly done, but it would be great to get an outside perspective. Anyone want to take a look? Sure 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GracesWarbler Posted September 21, 2022 Author Share Posted September 21, 2022 1 hour ago, SirVive said: Sure Thanks! I'll send you a message. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GracesWarbler Posted October 13, 2022 Author Share Posted October 13, 2022 My Birds of the Southwest Coloring Book is done! Great thanks to everyone here who provided feedback and encouragement. I'm really happy with how it turned out, and I'm looking forward to experimenting with some watercolors when I get my physical copy. If you're interested, you can find free pages to color on my website https://colorbird.org/. The drawings there are available as both PDFs (for printing) or PNGs with transparent backgrounds (for digital art). I may be interested in doing a coloring book for another region at some point, but I'd have to think about it. Most of my photos are from the Southwest U.S., so I'd probably have to partner with others for photos. Anyway, thanks again! 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirVive Posted October 13, 2022 Share Posted October 13, 2022 Congrats 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Bird Nuts Posted October 13, 2022 Share Posted October 13, 2022 Congratulations! It looks so awesome! I would love to know what type of paper the physical copy has. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GracesWarbler Posted October 14, 2022 Author Share Posted October 14, 2022 12 hours ago, The Bird Nuts said: Congratulations! It looks so awesome! I would love to know what type of paper the physical copy has. It's white paper at 55 lbs / 90 GSM. I would have liked something thicker, but Amazon provides the easiest publishing option and they don't offer many paper choices. Colored pencils, markers, and crayons seem to work fine but paints warp the paper a little. So I think it's good for casual coloring but may not be good enough for a serious artist. What do you think? I also offer free downloads of some pages on my website, so there's options for digital art or printing on different paper. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Bird Nuts Posted October 14, 2022 Share Posted October 14, 2022 9 hours ago, GracesWarbler said: It's white paper at 55 lbs / 90 GSM. I would have liked something thicker, but Amazon provides the easiest publishing option and they don't offer many paper choices. Colored pencils, markers, and crayons seem to work fine but paints warp the paper a little. So I think it's good for casual coloring but may not be good enough for a serious artist. What do you think? I also offer free downloads of some pages on my website, so there's options for digital art or printing on different paper. Thanks! Yeah, that is pretty thin paper and probably quite smooth. It might help to state the paper type in the Amazon description. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GracesWarbler Posted October 15, 2022 Author Share Posted October 15, 2022 14 hours ago, The Bird Nuts said: Thanks! Yeah, that is pretty thin paper and probably quite smooth. It might help to state the paper type in the Amazon description. The paper has a little roughness--a little rougher than printer paper, I think. Like I said, I'd like something thicker, but I think it's good enough. Anyway, as a Thank You to everyone who helped me in this thread, I'm happy to send you each two free books: one for you to keep and one to give to someone as a gift. (Or feel free to give both away, especially if you already bought a copy.) If you're interested, just send me a message with a mailing address. The only condition is that you have to give at least one away. I don't want both books gathering dust together. And feel free to let me know what you think of the book. Attn: @lonestranger@Birds are cool@The Bird Nuts@stitch58@SirVive@Connor Cochrane@pictaker@Kevin@Seanbirds@Chris Clem@Spyonabird@Aidan B 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seanbirds Posted October 16, 2022 Share Posted October 16, 2022 21 hours ago, GracesWarbler said: The paper has a little roughness--a little rougher than printer paper, I think. Like I said, I'd like something thicker, but I think it's good enough. Anyway, as a Thank You to everyone who helped me in this thread, I'm happy to send you each two free books: one for you to keep and one to give to someone as a gift. (Or feel free to give both away, especially if you already bought a copy.) If you're interested, just send me a message with a mailing address. The only condition is that you have to give at least one away. I don't want both books gathering dust together. And feel free to let me know what you think of the book. Attn: @lonestranger@Birds are cool@The Bird Nuts@stitch58@SirVive@Connor Cochrane@pictaker@Kevin@Seanbirds@Chris Clem@Spyonabird@Aidan B Oh wow, cool!! I'll PM you with the address. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GracesWarbler Posted October 22, 2022 Author Share Posted October 22, 2022 Look what showed up in the mail! I've been coloring a bit today. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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