I love trawling through second hand and charity shops, and recently found this tattered old vintage music book dated 1901.
The book was falling apart, but I have a weakness for old books of any kind, so took it home to see if I could salvage something and use it for art.
I felt that the pages, laden with music notes, would make a perfect backdrop for a little bird painting.
I decided to experiment using a stencil, so as to create a similar artwork many times. Because one of my favourite birds here in midwest America is the chickadee, this is the bird I chose.
They are such cheeky, busy little creatures, but also have the most adorable lilting song and gorgeous markings with the little black cap and beady, bright eyes.
I’m doing many versions, including a stylized one, and a more natural one – depending on the layout and type of music notes.
I’m putting them into these just-as-cute frames, and they are for sale in my online shop: LizaPaizis.com
They have been very popular in the galleries, so much so that I’ve explored doing another type of bird: The Raven, and what better backdrop than Edgar Allen Poe’s dark narrative poem of the same name?
Using a base outline giglee print of my raven sketch over an excerpt of the poem, I paint an original artwork of Raven, Moon and Flowers. Again, each one is different, and comes in a budget frame, available in my Shop.
This, and the Chick-a-Dee art, would make wonderful gifts for bird lovers, or an Edgar Allen Poe aficionado!
Liza Paizis Original Art and Jewelry Blog 
Hi Liza
I like your creative music-sheet idea. Don’t know what the pianists would say; but wouldn’t it be possible to photocopy the pages on art paper?
D
Hey Uncle Dim! Yes, I’d thought of painting on copied images of the music, but I felt it just wouldn’t be the same for originality as each one is entirely unique being on different pieces of the music 🙂
Wow! This is amazing!
I love the idea of reusing old books as art journals, I’ve watched many YouTube videos about it. But like, making art out of a single page tells a whole different story I think.
And those two pieces here are doing a great job at telling their own! The Poe one with that beautiful Raven? And the fact that you framed them too? *0* I am just in love with this whole post!! Ha ha.
The first one caught my eye when I was scrolling in the WordPress Reader and had me actually check out the full post. It just reminded me of a song I wrote which is about feeling trapped and it’s about a bird in a cage, which is me. And your picture just makes me feel hope as I imagine a bird out of the cage and tangled in music sheets instead hehe
Thanks for sharing, Liza! I’ll make sure to check out more of your blog later! ♥
Thank you so much for visiting Chloe, and for your lovely comments! There is something about birds, and their energy….I love your concept of the bird flying from the cage, tangled in the music sheets – I hope you do create this as a drawing/painting – your work shows a beautiful sense of soul and whimsy 🙂
Thank you for taking the time to reply to my comment. It means a lot ♥
Birds do have something magical about them!
Where I live at the moment, we have little jackdaws that have made a habit of coming onto our balcony because we put our leftover blueberries out for them. And it’s funny because they always come around the same time and overtime, they started lingering, not just going for the blueberries and leaving. It’s like they’re intrigued by us.
And I love feeding them in the winter cos I know it mightn’t be as easy for them to find food. And it’s just nice to have little friends come check up on us every weekend 😀
Anyways, I’d love to turn this into a painting maybe some time soon or maybe it’ll need a couple of months to simmer in my mind before I can paint it out!
Jackdaws are such intelligent birds! It certainly is wonderful to have the birds around during winter….I’m sure your painting inspired by your little friends is going to be beautiful 🙂
I love your artwork! It’s just lovely and whimsical. I especially love birds. I’m so happy to be following you now.
Thank you so much Celaine !