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Writer's pictureKaren Ruffles

Courting Corvids - return of the peanuts!

First up, blimey, has it really been over six months since I last blogged? Part of that is because I've started a Drawing in Dark Substack, which I can use for talking about both businesses - this one of course and Tales in Sombre Tones which is now a community interest company. This blog will now be more general studio news, which I think is a nice way of sorting things out.


A lot has gone on in the last year, heck, it's only May and already quite a lot has gone on this year - including a sprained arm and a broken toe (I'm fine, now) plus some ongoing family issues which have meant that while I have been incredibly busy, I've not been as public. I did want to quickly let my followers here know that I have a follow up campaign to the Courting Crows project on the go. Since moving to Newcastle, I noticed a difference in the bird species locally, even though it's not actually that far from Whitby - just over 50 miles as the crow flies in fact, a bit further if you're a human and have to drive there. Even further if you take public transport like me and have to go all the way round the national park first lol. Anyway.



There were two surprises in the local species - green parrots for one, apparently becoming quite common across the UK but I thought I was going nuts at first, the other was the arrival in my second year, of ravens. That was particularly exciting - they have extended their territory over the years but still the only time I'd really seen them asides from the Tower of London was when I lived down in Cornwall. Now they sit on my roof calling which is great, apart from at night when they do a sort of terrifying yelling if something has disturbed them. I was also disturbed.


I decided this meant it was time for another round of corvid chasing and bribery, hence the peanuts and so I'm pretty much rerunning the last Kickstarter with small and large crow drawings, limited edition mini prints and so on. As with the Reflections project last January, I'm adding free mini prints each time we raise the original target again - currently we're on four bonus prints worth a total of £100 which will go up if more folks back. There's also free shipping and the chance to have a dedication to yourself of a loved one in the exhibitions, both in person and online.


I won't waffle on too much in this one, it's really just a quick update to make sure nobody misses out, but I am really looking forward to being back with photos of all the places I've been to see different corvids over the next few weeks. A breath of fresh air, literally :) All that remains is to point you to Courting Corvids so you can grab your free prints, and leave you with a beautiful photo of my new favourite spot, Tynemouth, where there were no crows at all the other day.



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1 Comment


ChampionOfMovie
Aug 19

Hi, I think it would be appropriate to attach a video tutorial to your article so that readers can clearly see how to make stop motion animation. Besides, https://www.screencapture.com allows you to do it without any problems.


Maybe you will listen to me and your next post will have a video?

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