Mr. Rankin's Foolproof Bird Guide

Since you now know about my friend Mark’s wily ways, you’ll understand the motivation behind my Father’s Day present this year. Like every other dutiful 7-year-old daughter, I drew my Dad a picture.

My Dad is retired and one of his joys is to watch birds from our Central Oregon home. A bird book and binoculars are always perched at the living room bay windows which look out on no less than 3 bird feeders and a bird bath.

When Mark discovered Mr. Rankin’s love of bird watching, it took him about .00017 seconds to find a way to torment him with the very thing he enjoyed. While standing at the window Mark would shout “Wow, check out those birds!” to the effect of Mr. Rankin scrambling to the window to see whatever winged creatures were available. Of course, there was never a bird in sight as Mark stood by and took pleasure in my Dad’s gutted reaction to the bleak, birdless landscape.

So, for Father’s Day this year I made my Dad a foolproof digital bird guide, so no matter what Mark does, my Dad can always have some birds to watch. Happy Father’s Day Dad!

Mr. Rankin's Foolproof Bird Guide to Central Oregon: Bluejay, American Gold Finch, Mountain Chickadee, Red-Winged Blackbird, California Quail, Woodpecker, Rufous Hummingbird. Use Year Round - Rain or Shine - Mark Proof. Add all-purpose bird seed for best results.

Mr. Rankin’s Foolproof Bird Guide

Since you now know about my friend Mark’s wily ways, you’ll understand the motivation behind my Father’s Day present this year. Like every other dutiful 7-year-old daughter, I drew my Dad a picture.

My Dad is retired and one of his joys is to watch birds from our Central Oregon home. A bird book and binoculars are always perched at the living room bay windows which look out on no less than 3 bird feeders and a bird bath.

When Mark discovered Mr. Rankin’s love of bird watching, it took him about .00017 seconds to find a way to torment him with the very thing he enjoyed. While standing at the window Mark would shout “Wow, check out those birds!” to the effect of Mr. Rankin scrambling to the window to see whatever winged creatures were available. Of course, there was never a bird in sight as Mark stood by and took pleasure in my Dad’s gutted reaction to the bleak, birdless landscape.

So, for Father’s Day this year I made my Dad a foolproof digital bird guide, so no matter what Mark does, my Dad can always have some birds to watch. Happy Father’s Day Dad!

Mr. Rankin's Foolproof Bird Guide to Central Oregon: Bluejay, American Gold Finch, Mountain Chickadee, Red-Winged Blackbird, California Quail, Woodpecker, Rufous Hummingbird. Use Year Round - Rain or Shine - Mark Proof. Add all-purpose bird seed for best results.

Like a Glove: A Love Story

Some ideas take a while to surface, time to percolate, breath and take the shape of what they are meant to be. A few years ago I hosted a Julefrokost and made some fun invites – a knitted nordic advent-calendar-inspired card with little flaps that open to show party details like 1) how much pickled herring would be consumed, 2) what time to show up promptly by, and 3) a partial menu printed in both English and Danish.

Julefrokost party invitation with knitted nordic design. Invite has four advent calendar style door flaps that open to reveal party information.
Julefrokost is hard to pronounce for Americans, so my friends called it Joogala Froogala.

Some time passed, and I added a title to the idea when I was inspired by someone and sent them a book of words and pictures. More time went by, and the moose wouldn’t leave me alone. I thought: they need to be Bigger! Grander! Fuzzier!

Most things start out simple and kind of ugly, like this. Usually they get better. These sketches gave me enough of an idea of what the thing should look like to fire up Illustrator.

So I started working on the most complicated illustrator file I’ve ever made and nearly succumbed to carpal tunnel syndrome. My hours of toil wouldn’t be for naught as I planned to share the story of smitten moose, fuzzy creatures and a house in the woods. Stories are for sharing, right? Friends, people I admired or who inspired me, clients, agencies, people I’d like to work with – the list was all encompassing. I even sent one to Conan O’Brien. I hope he got it.

A large part of this project was finding a vendor to produce the poster. Flocking seems to be a very niche market, and my goal of producing it in the U.S. was a long shot. After Googling for weeks, following endless phone leads from local screen printers, and being told that China was the place to go for this kind of thing, I found the American Flocking Association. Flocking has many purposes: lettering on t-shirts, lining telescopes, glove boxes and jewelry cases, and looking like fake snow on fake Christmas trees. All of the companies who flock these items were mighty confused when I called and asked if they could just flock a piece of paper.

Finally, I found Great Lakes Flocking, who was not only in the US of A, but also had a very nice employee WITH MY SAME LAST NAME that helped me on each step of my flocking adventure. After a few weeks of production, a giant pallet arrived at my studio. “Like a Glove: A Love Story” had finally arrived!

I think the third time was the charm on this idea, and I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out. If you ask very nicely, I will send you a copy.

My pioneer rabbit, lurking in the background. Sneaky fellow.
What it's all about.