Moving Sale: Chicken Paintings!

Like I said a while back, I have a lot of art that needs to go. And it needs to go for one of two reasons: I will have not have room to store it, or it's no longer the kind of work I am actively creating (therefore not something I take to art shows).

So I'm having a somewhat loosely organized "I'm moving and can't take it with me" sale. Today's featured art consists of chicken paintings!

These are all 6x6 inches, original paintings, acrylic on masonite. The backgrounds are all shades of metallic gold, which look REALLY pretty in some nice lighting! Each painting has a string on the back from which you can hang it, or if you'd rather prop it up somewhere or frame it, you can just remove the string!

They are $40 each. Shipping in the US is $7 for up to two paintings, or $10 for up to five paintings. If you want something shipped outside the US, I need to know what you want and where you are so I can calculate it! CA residents pay 7.75% sales tax. PayPal preferred (katherineplumer @ gmail.com, remove spaces), checks and money orders and cash are also fine. Proceeds will help offset moving expenses and the construction of new chicken coops!

Oh! The giant typed copyright text is NOT on the original paintings, that's just for my web images!

Interested? Comment, email, call, etc. :-)

Red Pyle Old English Game rooster


Black Minorca hen


Wheaten Aseel rooster


Mille Fleur Belgian D'Uccle Bantam rooster


Buff Brahma rooster


Brown Red Old English Game Bantam hen


Buff Laced Polish rooster


Black Sumatra rooster


Mille Fleur Belgian D'Uccle Bantam rooster (head)


Black Tailed White Japanese Bantam rooster


Brown Red Sumatra rooster


Red Pyle Rosecomb Bantam hen


Lemon Blue Modern Game Bantam hen


Black Rosecomb Bantam hen:


Blue Ameraucana rooster


Silver Penciled Plymouth Rock Bantam rooster


Wheaten Aseel hen


White Crested Black Polish rooster


Partridge Wyandotte Bantam rooster


Blue Orpington Bantam rooster


Dark Brahma rooster

February 25 work in progress

Okay, the planes are done! (unless I need to tweak something... always a possibility). I more or less know what I'm doing with the background. At least, I have the ground part figured out. I don't know yet what I will do with the sky, kinda depends how everything else looks. :-)

February 23 work in progress

February 20 work in progress

last show of the season

Well, my poultry show season went out with a fizzle. This'll be the only year where I have nothing listed on my "show record" page on my website. So sad! Means I need to raise some really good stuff for next season! The light bulb in the chicken coop finally seems to be doing the trick, I'm getting lots of eggs, and will be setting a batch every week for about the next month. This'll be a goofy spring, I'm sure!

I'm glad I survived my little "midlife crisis" that I had with the birds a couple years back, you know, when I was determined to get rid of them all. That would have been a very bad idea. I think I've finally figured out that it's a people-thing for me. I have a great little group of poultry friends who I absolutely love, and (other than enjoying the birds) I think that's what keeps me going in the hobby, thus the midlife crisis was when I was feeling a little lacking in the friend department... Of course, the fact that I'm moving to a place where someone already is raising and showing more birds than I am keeps me motivated too. ;-)

I do have to say, after going to four shows in the last two months, and please know this is NOT a reflection at all on show management because they really do a wonderful job... but I really hate one-day shows. One of the shows I attended was a one-day show, meaning you can bring the birds in on Friday if you want, but you don't have to be there til Saturday morning, and all the action is finished by Saturday evening (most shows finish on a Sunday morning).

A long long time ago, when I first started showing birds, the judging of champions was a big deal. It seemed like everyone would gather around to watch, and everyone would congratulate the winners. There was anticipation, and drama! What I saw last Saturday was people cooping-out and leaving while their classes were still being judged, if their birds were not in the running for any class awards. By the time the champions were picked, most of the birds in the show were gone, hardly anyone was gathered around to watch, and it was really kind of chaotic. I hate that, and I miss the old days where people were more polite about it, and actually seemed to care. Now so many people just want to leave as early as they can. Not me. Remember how I said it's a people-thing for me? I actually enjoy visiting... And I get that having everything done on Saturday potentially saves people the expense of a night in a hotel, because they can drive home Saturday evening (like I did), but it kind of sucks all the fun out of it when people just spending the day thinking "let's hurry up and get out of here." I like the Saturday night banquet, but even without it I wish that people would be courteous enough to stay until the show is over.

Anyway, that's my rant. And again I do not want anyone to think that I'm in any way complaining about the show management, I know they have their reasons for having this schedule. I'm just annoyed at all rude people and saddened by how the camaraderie seems to have disintegrated.

And no, I have NO idea how to fix the early-cooping out problem. I know all the shows are struggling with this, largely in part because that's when there have been some problems with bird theft!

Next show for me: in November? Time will tell!

February 15 work in progress

Valentine Shmalentine

and the losing streak continues!

I was way up on the northern coast of California over the weekend at another poultry show. Yes, January and February are very busy months for me when it comes to chicken stuff. I really love the show up in Eureka, and always have a great time. I feel like I've fallen in with a whole new crowd in the last few years, and I just want to say I know some wonderful people. I had a blast!! My birds didn't win a darn thing, but one of my bestest buds won the whole darn show, and that's exciting!

There's just one more show to go (for me, anyway) this season, and that's next weekend. I turned on the incubator today. It's going to be a wonky season, but I'm trying to get some chicks hatched out EARLY because if I wait til after I move I think it will be too late and too hot.

A lot of the drive on highway 299 looks like this, and a lot of it has really steep dropoffs and really tight turns. I would not want to make that drive in the dark! I have to say I'm going to miss my old route up 101... guess it'll be 299 from Redding from now on.

Jen and I found bigfoot!

These are the two BBRed cockerels I've been showing this year. Confession, they are both half Brassy Back. That's why they are too dark and stripey. I did that to put some tail length on them. Boy howdy, it worked. Their offspring should be pretty interesting:


BBRed pullet:

Brassy Back pullet:

Black pullet:

Blue Brassy Back pullet (she's rather friendly) ;-)

These are some of my new neighbors that I'll get to know better when I move. That's part of the property where I will be living in a few months. A few months. Holy crap. It's only a matter of time until freak-out mode sets in!

February 8 work in progress

Oh boy, I've been so caught up in shooting more video footage that I nearly forgot to take some photographs!

I've started on the other side of the knife. I know that I haven't showed you the finished Corsair image. I will eventually. ;-)

But tonight I give you this really crappy, blurry, poorly-lit photo showing a partially completed border. Exciting, right?


There's a whole lot more going on than what you can actually see. The entire design is lightly dotted on and scribed into the surface. Scribing is basically lightly scratching. It won't hold ink, but it shows me where I need to make the marks.


Feel free to send winning lottery tickets, large sums of cash, and Prince Charming in my direction. Tomorrow's my birthday. ;-)

scrimshaw video!

FINALLY! I've been trying to upload this thing for days! It was too big and wouldn't upload properly, so I had to make it a bit shorter than the original version...

Enjoy! ;-)

February 2 work in progress

This is the first "layer" of dots making up the cloud formations. I will be working back into it and deepening the shadows and really giving it some "punch."


And guess who just figured out how to shoot a video!!! Me! Well, I knew how to shoot video, but I just figured out HOW to arrange the camera so as to record what I am doing. I'm tinkering with it right now. [significant time passes, la la ha]. Well boogers, this is taking too long. I'll fiddle with it more tomorrow. It's bed time!

twenty years!

I know, I know, another chicken posting, but this is a serious occasion.

Twenty years ago today I got my first Rosecomb Bantams. I'd had Old English Game Bantams for five years already before that, but today is my Rosecomb Anniversary. :-) That's a long time.

I couldn't find any pics from 1992, but here's one from 1993. That's the first generation of the Rosecomb X Old English, which is now my line of Black Breasted Red Rosecombs. And me, and the wild turkey I raised that year, and Gio (the dog in front), and Annie (the dog in the back).

Those were good times. :-)

food memory

Okay, I promise, scrimshaw pics tomorrow! The Corsair is looking really good and I'm working on the background sky at this point, I simply have not photographed it...

Anyway that's not what I'm going to talk about tonight.

As someone who REALLY likes to bake, sometimes I get an idea in mind and I will totally obsess about it until I actually create it. Hmm, actually I do this with art too.

Up until the age of about 3 years old, I lived in San Diego, CA. After that, I have visited there at least once a year. So I'm not sure if this memory comes from when I was 3, or when I was slightly older, but I suspect it's from when I lived there. From time to time, the family would go out to dinner at a restaurant called Anthony's. My brother says there was a pond there. I don't remember the pond. Or the decor, or the dinner, though I know it was seafood. I remember the cake. It was the highlight of my little three-year-old existence. It was like a bite of pure bliss, it was the only thing there that any of us kids really wanted to eat, it was amazing.

I have no idea what it tasted like, I couldn't describe it, I don't remember it and don't know if I would recognize it, I just remember being crazy about it. It was zabaglione cake, or zabaione, I'm not sure what spelling they used. Sponge cake with a rum custard sauce, apparently. I have scoured the internet for THEIR recipe, can't find it, but did unearth something that said they dropped it from the menu a few years ago, which is extremely tragic, and also means that I will never again experience it.

Yet I am determined to re-create it. That's hard, having nothing to compare it to. If anyone out there in blog-land ever ate the cake at Anthony's, and has any idea if there is a recipe out there, do tell. Because I'm going to obsess about it until I figure out how to make it.