What Makes Bridget, Bridget?
Bridget describes herself like this:
I am an artist and author living in central Victoria with my husband, two sons (9 and 11), our little cute/ugly dog and a flock of chickens. I grew up in Northern Ireland and came to visit some friends in Australia about 20 years ago. I loved it here so much I stayed.
When I first came to Australia it was very much the birds that showed me I was in a different country. Australia's birds are wonderful. In Ireland the birds are small and shy; here the birds are bright, loud and often quite big. There are lots of little brown birds here as well and I love them too. My favourite is the little Brown Thornbill who has a lovely sweet call. I hear them in my garden while I work in my studio.
I enjoy camping, going on adventures and exploring different Australian habitats. But most of all I like seeing what birds I can spot in all the places I visit.
I have a great birding/artist friend called Jane who I am doing a really big project with. Over the next 10 years we want to try and spot, photograph and draw the 700 birds of Australia. It may take 10 years, it may take 20, but I know we will have fun.
What Does An Artist And Author Actually Do?
Bridget is self-employed, which means she's her own boss. She makes art, designs products, teaches printmaking workshops, and writes and illustrates children's books about Australian birds. She sells her work through her website and at markets, and shops and galleries buy her work too, so you can find it for sale all over Australia.
Most of her art is made using a printmaking process called drypoint. Here's how she describes it:
I have a large printing press in my studio and to make my art I scratch the bird image into a sheet of metal called a plate. I then apply thick ink all over the metal plate with a cloth, rubbing the ink into all the scratched lines, and then I wipe off the excess ink so there is only ink left in the lines.
Damp paper is then placed on top of the inked-up plate and they are pulled through the printing press. The press squashes the paper down onto the plate and this pressure transfers the ink from the plate onto the paper.
Sometimes, for the illustrations in her children's books, Bridget then adds extra colours to the images with watercolour paint.
How Did Bridget End Up Drawing Birds?
I have always loved to draw. When I was really little, at kinder, I painted cats all day long. Then as I got older I liked to draw horses. While I was at art college in Scotland I started using birds as subject matter and this continued when I arrived in Australia. It was my way of learning what all the birds were and, in a way, I am still learning.
So I think it was always going to happen - me making a living from drawing. I had part-time jobs over the years but I remember very clearly the day I quit my last part-time job and decided to be a self-employed artist/designer full-time.
I started making children's books when I was a new mum. I decided to make a bird book for my son and it just grew from there. I have now written four books and I have got lots of ideas for more.
What Is Bridget Most Proud Of?
Bridget's latest book was shortlisted for the Children's Book Council of Australia's book awards. As a self-published author and illustrator, that kind of recognition meant a lot. But here's what she says she's most proud of:
What I am most proud of is when I get a message from a parent or grandparent or teacher saying how their child recognised a spotted pardalote in the garden or a currawong in their local park - all because they had been reading my bird books. The idea that my books have helped inspire a love of nature makes me very happy and is the reason why I do what I do.
Got questions?
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Bridget reckons the bigger thing is loving it and doing it lots. She's been drawing since she was tiny - cats at kinder, then horses, then birds. The drawings got better because she did them every day, not because she was secretly born good at it. If you draw the same thing a hundred times, the hundredth one will look different to the first.
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Drypoint is when you scratch a picture into a sheet of metal, rub thick ink into the scratches, then press damp paper on top to lift the picture off. The big metal press is for grown-ups, but the idea works at home with a piece of styrofoam (the kind that comes in packaging), a blunt pencil, and some paint. Scratch your drawing into the foam, roll paint over the top, press a piece of paper down, peel it off. That's a print.
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She made it for her son when he was little. She wanted a bird book for him, so she drew one. That's it - that's the whole start. The first one wasn't for shops or awards or anybody else. It was for one kid she loved. Four books later, the most recent one was shortlisted for a big national award. But it started as a present.
