The pigeon handi-crafts project(s) page: crafting pigeon folk art. (Updating)

Those of you who visit my blog, here, regularly, would easily recall some of the latest iPigeon pigeon fan art I've posted, over on my "History of Art" (with pigeons included) slight art exhibition page. I'm making attempts, or beginning to, at least, towards making some of these generative AI visions and aspirations, in art: folk art, for real. This means that I'll have to whet my chops on some new, to me, craft genres, such as crocheting, which I've already begun, having obtained a practice loom, to up my skills in weaving, in general, along with some fancy feather-ful yarn, which I just now found online, after coming across some chenille yarn pumpkins, which I found to be both amusing as well as inspiring, within this context. Who knows how far this crafting could go, and what would it look like, if I never did any of it, myself? I figure, I'm in a good place to start, somewhere, and I procured some messy, fanciful yarn, as a gesture towards equipping myself with some necessary interpretive tools and material resources to work with, for dedicating myself, and some time invested, in to creating these crafting folk art projects, which, hopefully, end up looking like birds!

My project practice loom, which I obtained from Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D6R7PCSH

An adorable assortment of feathery yarn, discovered via Google Shopping, after browsing some yarn inspiration found on Amazon. Apparently, a 90% discount off of the regular price, on Temu!

The pumpkins that inspired it all (nearly; I'd been on a folk art kick, recently, and I was attracted by this product on Amazon, and I almost picked up a set, myself, for analysis).

A closer look at the material I'll be acquiring; I purchased three sets, and got free shipping, on Temu, with an exclusive buyer's offer!

There'll be more to come, as I document my progress in creating these handi-crafts, over time. It'll give me a productive and neat creative project to work on! So far, I haven't really found any sort of template I can work from, so I have to gather sparse resources and work on my raw technique, developing skills that, hopefully, some day, equate to that I can create pigeon yarn-crafts (I thought, initially, that I would work with raffia, mimicking the initial folk art pigeons I had generated on my art history page, on this blog). I had even procured a clump of dried hay grass to work with, which I found, while out buying food for the birds' next day's meal, one night.

A clump of tall hay grass that I found; perhaps suitable to try my hand at creating raffia folk art work, I felt. I took it home with me, since I found the notion serendipitous.

I'll keep this blog article updated, in due time, as I work on these projects, and hone my skills in this craft genre.

The iPigeon.institute "Journey Through Art History" Generative AI Online Art Exhibition (annotations coming soon).

 It's the year 2024. 

We'd had several months' lead up time, to this place in time (February, 2024), in which conversational AI, Search Assistance with AI, and AI featuring Large Language Models had been introduced to the general public, alongside various generative AI platforms, some of which promised to shake up many industries and professions, with users' minds being given a vastly new and competitive margin in creating content, whether it be audio, video / visual, or code-based, in nature.

Personally, I let a lot of the headlines come and go, as I'd been preoccupied with healing up, from my months in being homeless (I'm now housed), for the most part. That being said, I've now come across a neat platform for generative AI at labs.google (it's called ImageFX), in terms of image generation, via text prompt. I thought of some humorous and idiot concepts, pertaining to pigeon'ry, or, which would ostensibly include pigeons, in the rendered image. 

To my delight, some of the renders come out just fantastic, to be honest! I was truly impressed by some of the images that ImageFX returned. After a few go-rounds with the web-based platform, I decided that I could compile a "History of Art," of sorts, with all art works featuring pigeons, in place of humans, or that just have pigeons present in the image. 

This article begins as simply an uploading compilation of images, and I expect to update the art exhibition, intermittently (hopefully soon, maybe later today) with annotations and art historian insight and allegory, as though the reader is brought along, on a tour. Here are the images!

The iPigeon.institute Sticker Time art, illustrative, and photography miniatures collection, with annotations.

Welcome to the iPigeon.institute online slight exhibition and annotations for the Sticker Time sticker collection.

The Sticker Time art miniatures are an ongoing and updating collection of images, illustrations, photographs, and digital renders of (mostly) pigeon (or “bird,” in general,) images, as well as images that have, or have become, contextually, seasonally, or otherwise, relevant, in terms of content, research, and development.

Sticker Time comes out of best practices in branding. My experience, in working with the circular form, comes mainly from an exercise I went through (which I can’t find, online, at the moment) which was hosted by Google, similar to this article; the essential concept being that some essential message of the brand could be delivered through symbolic, illustrative / graphic, or alphanumeric form. Here, with Sticker Time, the same theme as a branding logo is employed, yet the form of Sticker Time takes a more lax and lighthearted approach, given that the brand is already established (the brand has its own sticker, as well, for that matter). 

Here, in this online collection, I feature the entire set of iPigeon.institute Sticker Time images, with annotations. Enjoy! 

One last thing, though: a how-to for printing out the stickers, if you'd like to do so, at home.

Using a standard graphic design app will invariably cause off-center prints. The paper and interface template that I use for this project is Avery 22807. 

To start, visit the avery.com website, and search for 22807, to get the 2-inch, 12 per page label template. 

The avery.com search page, after querying 22807, in the search box. 

You can make a login for the Avery website, at this point, and you'll see a page pop up, featuring different design templates, for the round labels (stickers).

Here's the page you'll see, after logging in to the Avery website (you can also log in as a guest, I believe).

Here, we're going to be using the blank round label template (the first option, at the top left). You'll see the design interface pop up,after selecting this template. 

The Avery 22807 round 2-inch label template.

What's great about this template is that you can standardize the entire sheet, based off of one single design input - or, there's also an option for inputting a different design on each numbered sticker. Just select "Add objects" at the bottom of the page, and center each sticker around the edges of the circular template. You'll want to perhaps have some bleed, surrounding the template's edges, in order to ensure that the eventual printed sticker does not come out smaller than the actual paper cut size. 

Once the template page is finished, you can export the the project to a photo or pdf file, and, if you don't have a printer, like myself at the moment) you can visit FedEx Office, or some other print shop, or office store, and you'll be able to print the page(s) out. For FedEx Office, for example, you can send the prints over to "printandgo@fedex.com," which is the online way to transfer the project data over, for when you visit FedEx Office to do the print job. Their printers make nice stickers out of these prints.

A bunch of stickers that I printed, using FedEx Office's printers and professional paper-cutting tool.

https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/live/ads?sz=640x480|300x600&iu=/21748173425/CPM_ipigeon.institute__Banner_300x600/ipigeon.institute__Side_Banner_300x600&ciu_szs=300x600&env=vp&impl=s&gdfp_req=1&output=vast&unviewed_position_start=1&url=[referrer_url]&description_url=[description_url]&correlator=[timestamp]

“Golden Tropical” glitch line art pigeon, rendered by Vector Q app, (2023)

“Sprightly Sparrow,” glitch version. (2021)

“Flattened Rat,” glitch version. (2021) 

“Poppin’ Pigeons.” 2021

iPigeon.institute brand logo for Pinterest. 2021

Baby Sparrow at feeding time. 2022

Curious baby pigeon in Pershing Square. 2022.

Chimera Sparrow. Created with Chimera Painter, a Google AI project. 2021.

Injured winged pigeon, kaleidoscope glitch version. 2023.

Baby Fruit Bat, glitch version. 2021.

Navy Stripes Cheetah pigeon illusion (masks). Rendered by Vector Q. 2022.

Preening pigeon (triangles). Rendered by Vector Q. 2021.

Wired lighting fanciful bird caricature. Rendered by Vector Q app. 2023.

Vanilla planifolia vine, Harajuku Doll version. Rendered by Vector Q app. 2023.

Ernst and Young Plaza, Downtown Los Angeles - Curious over a Fried Egg. (Artist unknown - George Herms?). Rendered by Vector Q. 2023.

Cute baby pigeon in hand, Tarot version. 2023.

Originally from:

Despite our best effort, either he’s calmer today or he doesn’t have enough energy. Gave him food and medication and misted his feathers a bit because he has some dried food below the beak. I’m sad but if he passes away soon at least I know he did with a full crop. pic.twitter.com/CDTlr6fOq8

— Tortolita Dove🌸Art For Healing (@angeliciart) December 13, 2022

2023 California superbloom wildflowers.  

Romantic pigeon, glitch version. Poppy flower adapted from Dior artwork. 2023.

Romantic pigeon, standard version. Poppy flower adapted from Dior artwork. 2023.

Common pigeon x The Matrix. 2023. Background from WallpaperCave.com.

*Go on try and hit me*
Black-headed Gull and Woodpigeon
Slimbridge Wetlands Centre #Gloucestershire #March2015
📷 Mike Lane. pic.twitter.com/BLWZsJxR2s

— a_london_pigeon (@a_london_pigeon) May 5, 2023

'French Pigeons’ painted in oils in 1952 by Milton Avery (American, 1885-1965). The sketch for this painting was done at St Tropez #French_Riviera pic.twitter.com/qSFLvb9W8d

— a_london_pigeon (@a_london_pigeon) May 4, 2023

birds restaurant, Hollywood, CA. Rendered by Vector Q app. 2023

Scientology Celebrity Center, Hollywood, CA. Rendered by Vector Q. 2023.

Sketching exercise, primitives of pigeons, glitch version. Glitch by SCN app. 2023.

Broken-winged pigeon, tropical poppin’ glitch version. Line art by Vector Q. 2023.

Ashy rover beetle. 2023.

More to come! Stay tuned, for updates!

June 24th, 2023 - Baby pigeon imagines Pizza Party!!! rendered by PinksCam app, by siyuan Lin.