Sea birds

I've seen sea birds in the Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, and the Gulf of Mexico, both in the United States and Mexico, but one of the first things I thought of was an old photograph I took of a great blue heron.

 

© Arnoldo L. Romero 2012

I shot the photograph at Mustang Island, Texas, on September 25, 2004, when walking alone on the beach during a break at an art retreat. You can only see the bird's silhouette, but I believed his looking into the horizon from a sand dune made a beautiful composition. It became my muse for this tag.

 © Arnoldo L. Romero 2012

I began by rendering a pen and ink sketch in my art journal.  I liked the sketch, and considered scanning it and using it in a tag.  However, I had 2 prints of the photograph, so I opted to use one of them for the tag itself.

 © Arnoldo L. Romero 2012

 I began by doing some wet sanding primarily around the perimeter of the photograph. Then, I soaked it in coffee to give it an aged feeling. When it was dry, I curved the upper corners inwards to form the tag shape with a pair of Fiskars corner edgers. I distressed it further with an edge scraper, a Tim Holtz hammer, a sepia stamp pad, and some ochre pastel. I punched a hole in the top and attached an eyelet to it. I wrote the word "Alone" with a Copic sepia inking pen on a scrap of coffee aged paper, and glued it to a Tim Holtz fragments charm. I also made a charm using a shell, metal bead and sea glass bead. I used a scrap of cord to attach the latter 2 charms along with a recycled earring pendant using square knots.

Working on this tag not only brought fond memories
of the beach, but also of the art retreat that helped reinforce my artistic passion.

Arnoldo