a few seem to have snuck South early

my Illustration Friday entry this week ;)

p.s. no ducks or waitpersons were or will be harmed as a result of this drawing :)

Dear Ducky ...

I decided to take a bath while I await the arrival of my Australian cousins. Apparantly they are coming by air, which is an amazing distance to fly or so the rabbit next door told me. But I am glad and hope they won't get seperated like our ancestors did back in the '90s. I wonder if my cousins look like me? I bet they will be hungry, I should put on a spread ... hmm I wonder what Australian ducks like to eat? I'll make sure I have plenty of Wonder Bread in stock. Of course, I'll run them a nice big bath so we can all float-out togther. I'm very excited. Can't wait to see them soon, love R.D. x a kiss and a quack x

I found this gorgeous illustration in a 1954 Wonder Books series Children's book called The Nine Friendly Dogs. I thought the little duckies in it were just lovely, I had to share it with you!

rubber ducky

I received another invite and finally I am on the blog! I realized I have been doing these little rubber ducky paintings through out the years and it took me a couple days to locate one but here it is. I thought it would be perfect for my 1st official post on 29,000 Floating Ducks blog. I have had a long connection to ducks. My first real boyfriend (when I was 21-28) was a painter that features ducks in humourous situations and his name is Michael Bedard. One year he bought ducks for my birthday a boy and girl named Ashley and Bosley and he made a comic strip about them. I really didn't even consciously think of any of this when I joined this group but when I was thinking about what I would say, I realized that ducks have been in my life quite a bit! I am excited to contribute and have fun and be inspired by all of you.

29,000 Puflets on the move?

29,000 Puflets

Just an advance warning - Puflet is usually very shy about being seen in public - but this project has galvanised him into action. Puflet and all his friends (and there are rather a lot of them) are getting together to try to TRACK DOWN THE MISSING DUCKS!!! They have already downloaded some maps which show major ocean currents, and are sorting out the logistics even as we speak ... watch this space.

Love to all

CAS xxxxxxxx

The ducks were out in one of the pine trees today..the sun is shining!!!! Who knows where they will be next!!???????

Update

I received an email from Theresa aka Snowbear today letting me know that due to other projects on the go, she feels she wouldnt have the time to dedicate to the project, and is having to pull out.

To Snowbear- we totally understand and wish you all the best with your work and the other projects you are involved in- be sure to pop past and see where we are at!

If you want to keep in touch with Snowbear, or see the work of her other projects, Theresa's website is: http://www.theresesmythe.com and her Blog is: http://rock-paper-scissors.typepad.com

So Crafty-Girl, when you have received the journal and are ready to pass it on, you now sent it to Bonojerry. Unfortunatly im yet to hear back from him so you may possibly be sending it straight on to Cathy in the UK- we will have to see what develops between now and then! [These being the challenges we face with such a project!] Hope this is ok.

And they're off!

Hurrah!

I just received an e-mail from Bek to say the ducks are on thier way ... via airmail ... which brings me to my entry.

Last night, I found what I had been looking for to be able to make my post on the blog (see picture). Six little babies in the palm of my hand.

When Bek told the story of 29,000 floating ducks, I immeditaley thought of these little guys. Being from Britain and flying back and forth across the Atlantic with Virgin Atlantic, I aquired these little fellas in my goodie bag each time I made a trip. They came attached to a toothbrush.

And, as I reminisced about my trips and thought more about the duckies, I wondered how many of these ickle rubber duckies have been 'floating' in the sky over the years.

I contacted Virgin's press room and discovered the duckies have been discontinued since a year or so ago but I'd like to think they were in their thousands ... possibly more.

Let's think about this a second: An A380 airbus is designed to carry 555 passengers (555 duckies) including all classes. Take one airtrip three times a day from Newark to London — and back — for one year (365 days).

555 x 6 (return trips) = 3330; 3330 x 365 days = 1,215,450 rubber duckies!!!!! And that is just one flight.

Okay, now, is it me, or do we have a lot of baby rubber duckies flying over our heads in the world???? I like to think some may still be out there ...

So anyway, "29,000 Floating Ducks" will be a skybound tribute to my glorious flights with Virgin Atlantic back and forth to my homeland.

1st Journal Entry- Baskerville Hound

Hey Kids! My first entry into our journal is all but finished and awaiting its long journey from Adelaide, Australia to New Jersey, USA! I thought instead of posting all that i have done in this journal entry and spoiling the surprise before the book reaches you, i would post a few thumbnails as a taste of whats to come!

I thought the best place to start is with the story of the ducks themselves. As i mentioned in an earlier post, i began with the shape of the ducks [specifically the plastic duck that adorns our cover-we really should name him/her-any suggestions?] I really liked the outline shape of him when he went from a 3 dimentional object to a 2D photograph. I started thinking about the currents that carried the ducks and started stitching into the page with cotton. This reminded me of ancient ocean maps, marked out with its currents and tides.

I have always liked the idea of language and speech being like a thread- that connect people's thoughts and ideas together like a dialogue. The rhythm of weaving in and out through the page made me think about this and the flow of text across a page. Using an old book, i incorporated some random lines of text, placed together in no particular order. The lines together creating a new piece of writing like: "So, having washed her plates and cup, the power of being alone with Earth and skies" [sounds deep huh?!].

we just so happended to have Chinese food for dinner the night that i added this to the journal, and i thought the fortune cookie messages fitted in with this somewhat philosophical idea quite nicely. one even said "good news will come to you by mail" which i thought had to be a good sign for our project!

Lastly, i wanted to add a playful element to my entry, since the rubber ducky is associated with children and play. Here i included a polaroid [how could i not have one in there somewhere!] and a cute little bluebird image.

Very much looking forward to seeing what Leeza's got to add for the next journal entry.

:)

"gaggle of geese" but what for ducks?

Hi all

Rebekah and Lee's images of multiple ducks made me think of "a gaggle of geese", but what, I wondered, is used to describe a gathering of ducks? Thought you might like to see some of the fun answers I found on "google".

• "a badelynge of ducks" from Medieval Names for Animals
• "badling of ducks" from "Sir Nigel" by Arthur Conan Doyle
• "waddling of . . . "
• "paddling of . . . " from Collective Nouns for Birds
• "team of . . . from Collective Nouns for Birds
• "flush of . . ." from Collective Nouns for Birds
• "raft of . . . " from Collective Nouns for Birds
• "flock of . . . " from Collective Nouns for Birds

I like "waddling" and "paddling" the best, just perfect terms for a duck gathering I think!

(have also discovered that all these "nouns of multitude" have been researched and collected in "An Exaltation of Larks" by James Lipton)

Also, I've yet to introduce myself as others have, I intend to, but as it's late I'm afraid I'll have to put it off yet another day.

Looking forward to working with everyone!

one more thing....

Oh and if everyone can post when the receive the journal, and then let us know when they are sending it on, we can keep track of it easier. Afterall these ducks have a tendancy to float all over the place!!
BTW: I've got Leeza's postal address and hope to send the book early this week! [29KFD on its maiden voyage!.....should get out the Champagne!]

Thoughts and Ideas

Thank you Rebecca for posting the ideas. I had delayed my post to think things over.
So here are my thoughts and ideas:
Since there are 18 of us and 100 pages that would calculate out to 5 and 1/2 pages each to fill the book.
If each of us had the book up to 3 weeks it would take just over a year to complete.
So do we want to shorten the time to 1 - 2 weeks and do 2 or 3 pages and have it travel around twice.
Or lengthen it to 3 - 4 weeks and do 5 to 5 1/2 all at once

I would love for each of us to be able to keep a part of this project. So my idea on the CD are:
Have all the pages scanned and put on a CD for each of us so we can print out and make our own book.
The scanning can be done by one person or each of us scan our own pages at 300dpi or higher and
sent to one person to make the CD.
Another thought I just now had would be for each of us to scan our pages and post them as a download for each of us
to download and keep and print. This way we would get to see the book and print it out as it is being created.
I have a way with my server to make the downloads private and secure with a password so we would be the only ones
able to get it. You would have to send your scans to me via snail mail on a CD.

If you would need instructions on how to turn the scanned pages into a book let me know.

Just my thoughts and looking forward to hearing yours. And thanks Bek for putting this together.

Some changes...and some new kids

Hiya All.....
To balance it out a little more i have shuffled the list around a little. Hope everyone is cool with this. So now the order will be:

Rebekah- Australia

Leeza- New Jersey, USA

Al McDermid [Urban convert]- Tokyo, Japan

Lee- South Carolina, USA

Miragee-Taipei, Taiwan

Dee- Texas, USA

Angela- Washington, USA

ValGalArt- California, USA

Scott- Italy

The Crafty Girl- Colorado, USA

Rock-Paper-Scissors- LA, USA

Bonojerry- NY, USA

Cathy, UK

Toni Kelly- Pennsylvania, USA

Cindy- Virginia, USA

Vicci- California, USA

Steve-UK

Back to Bek in Oz....

You might notice a couple new names from the original email I sent around, namely Cathy & Steve, both from the UK. We welcome them to the neighbourhood & look forward to seeing their work!

A few people have contacted me to ask if the book is making one trip through this list or if it is being sent a few times. My thoughts are that if it makes it way all the way through and back to me, not do we have a fantastic worldwide postal system, but why not give it another tour!

what do you think? Maybe if we do send it out again, we can send it through the list in reverse order, or in a completely new order?

Page Limit:

as for how many pages each person has, what if we set a limit of say 7 pages? This will allow each of us plenty of space to add our brilliant ideas and images [!] whilst making sure that there is enough room for everyone. There are 100 pages in the book- is seven too few or too many??

Time frame-

Chatting to Toni [well, via email!] she suggested we set a turn around time of 3 weeks from when you receive the journal to when you send it on to the next in line. This would give everyone an idea of when they can expect to see the book, as well as keeping momentum- does this sound good?

Any other ideas or suggestions about how best to go about this project? be sure to let us know!

Have a great weekend folks [remember here in Oz, we're a day infront of you so its Friday here!]

oh, and one last thing [i promise!] Toni had another brilliant idea, how about each page is scanned on to a CD for everyone to be able to keep?! great huh!

[Maybe each of us could scan our entries before we send it on, just in case, heaven forbid the journal got lost....]

Hurrah! ... quack, quack, oops!

Hi, I'm Leeza and I am next on the list - I can't wait to receive the book and make my art on the next page. I'm on vacation and can;'t upload pictures right now because of my crappy old browser, so will add something extra when I get back to my office on Monday. Just wanted to say hi and introduce myself. Glad to be a part of the team Bek, cheers! Everyone's sites look fabulous, it's going to be a brilliant book!

ventinovemila anatre

that's alot of rubber duckies! hello from sunny (but cold) Italia, I am very excited to be part of this. I found the BOOK project to be very interesting and can only imagine ours will be as well - especially because of the diversity and amount of contributors.
I am a licensed architect from Massachusetts andt have been living here in Fano, Italy (my wifes home turf) since 2004. In November 2005 I opened two blog pages, one for drawing and one for photos, and feel fortunate tohave linked up with such a great group of creative people on sites like Illo. Friday and Photo Thursday (and Friday). While architectural training is partially art-based, computers have become the medium of choice. I try to limit the use of the computer, however, and will draw by hand as much as possible - as there is a greater connection to the design. I have recently begun to use watercolors and am trying to incorporate that into my work, which has been mainly pencil drawing and pen and marker rendering.
I look forward to seeing the development of the journal and collaborating with everyone.

The "duckies" have invaded my studio...and landed on my messy desk!!!!! How is everyone else doing??????? Any more ideas????? What is everyone's "ART" of choice??? Is it watercolor???drawing????? collage?????? altered art????? fabric?????

"He Likes this Blog"!!!!!!!

Good Morning Everyone....Right down the road from where I live is a park..with a little lake....and many many duckies and geese...this one came right up to the car window to say hi.....thought it was perfect for our blog!!!

Hello There

Just saying hello, I'm Lee...and I'm glad to be here...some of y'all's work I'm familiar with through IF and I'm looking forward to getting to know everyone elses much better as the journal progresses...say hello ducks :)

from the Asian continent

Wow, it looks like our art project has been under way. I am so looking forward to receiving the journal! Before that, I think I should introduce myself a little bit. My name is Weichuen. I am from Taiwan. I am not a professional illustrator yet, but it's part of my daily life to write and draw for my stories. I have a feeling that I am going to learn tons of things from you guys.

For the time being I am engaged in writing a short illustrated story about one of my friends. I have no time to come up with a specific drawing about myself, so here is an old piece done in 2002. It pretty much shows how I am when I let my imagination roam free.

I think we are going to have a lot of fun!

Hi everyone,

I thought I would introduce myself also. I,m Toni and I live in north western Pennsylvania along the shores of Lake Erie. I am a calligrapher, watercolor and book artist.
I am looking forward to sharing this project with you and know this will be exciting and wonderful.
Here is a small calligraphic piece from a few years ago.

Have a creative day!

Hello Everyone....I'm sitting here at my computer in Placerville California (Northern California). I wanted to post a page from one of my altered books...this particular one is from a board book about a "butterfly girl"....
My name is Vicci..and I am looking forward to working with all of you on this project.

1st entry- here goes!

Well I thought I should bite the bullet and make a start!

At the moment I am working on my entry [& the 1st entry] of our journal. Rather than wait and show you a completed entry [& spoil the surprise for Leeza when she finds the journal in her mailbox!] I thought it would be better to post a work-in-progress and let you know some of my ideas.

This image is what I had in mind for the cover- if you haven't already read on my blog, I'm in love with Polaroids [the color, the instant result-all of it!] so I thought it fitting that I make that my starting point. [please don't feel you need to be precious with the cover of our journal b.t.w- if you have additions you want to make when the journal reaches u- go for it!]

I found this plastic duck years ago at a cool warehouse-like shop that collects bits and pieces, offcuts and scraps from all over the place, aiming to encourage recycling and giving school kids [& and art students!] all kinds of random things to create with! I believe this duck, along with all his brothers & sisters were from one of those side-show/carnival games where they each have a number printed on them & you try to fish them out of a pool for a prize. I liked his cute expression and he has been in my studio ever since.


My idea for the first journal entry centers around this plastic duck's shape- at the moment I am cutting this shape out from just about every paper, image, fabric or interesting texture I can find- as for what eventuates from all these ducks, I'm not 100% sure yet [you'll have to wait & see!]
I thought an entry referencing the story behind the title of our journal would be good-kind of like my response to the entry in Book [look at book website that I'm always on about!] that got me interested in starting a traveling journal project.

Here some of the little duckie clones I have been making....

Also- If anyone wants to post their own introduction- to tell us a bit about themselves or the work they do- feel free. Would be great way to get to know everyone.

Until next time......
Baskerville Hound

Welcome to 29,000 Floating Ducks

Welcome to the 29,000 Floating Ducks Traveling Art Journal Project.

This page will document the journey of our shared art journal as it passes from one artist to the next, all over the world.

Stay tuned for updates on the entries and progress of our journal!