ClipArt Heaven 2/ClipArt Heaven 2.iso/birdpix/birdread.doc

Text File | 1992-06-10 | 15KB | 271 lines

WELCOME to "BIRDPIX" by Anselm Atkins

78 black-and-white graphics files are on 4 diskettes, 1415K total. Files are in
.PCX format, which can be converted to other common formats with various
utilities such as HIJACK. Most were drawn using DELUXEPAINT II or DP II
ENHANCED, but some were done with PAINTBRUSH 2.0. File conversion from .LBM to
.PCX was made using the DELUXEPAINT II conversion utility.

Contents of this document:
1. A few words about each file
2. Something about the artist
3. What you get if you register
4. Other dynamic digital stuff you can get from Anselm
5. Registration form

1. List of files, with a few words

NOTE: Birds' common names are here given in lower case letters, for two reasons:
a) birds' common names are not proper nouns, b) they are not capitalized in the
dictionary. Be aware, however, that scientific publications do sometimes
capitalize them. My views on this can be found in AUK, V. 100 No. 4, Oct. 1983,
and reprinted in AUDUBON MAGAZINE, several months later.

J2BARRED Barred owl eyes raccoon in a tree--I saw this happen.
YELLOWBL Yellow-headed blackbirds shown in a decoratively-drawn flock.
SCISSORT The scissortail flycatcher of the Texas area--a very graceful bird.
HARRIER Norther harrier, formerly called marsh hawk, with an escaping rabbit.
BOBWHITE Bobwhite with chicks--somewhat after the manner of Charles Harper, who
  boasts that he doesn't care how many primary feathers a bird has--he just
  wants to get the number of wings right.
J2OWLBIG Bird watchers looking at two chicks of a great horned owl. These live
  in my yard, lucky me.
JNMAROWL An eastern screech owl attacks a woman. They do this to us in our
  driveway--but only around chick fledging time in late spring.
BUTORIDE Green-backed heron, Butorides striatus. Scientific names like this are
  given in just a few of the drawings.
GRASSPAR Grasshopper sparrow on, huh, grass.
SWIFTSIX Six chimney swifts.
STERNA Sterna fuscata, the sooty tern. Like terns in general, a good flier who
  fishes by diving. Lives around the Gulf.
SWALKITE The swallowtail kite of the southern swamps is one of the most graceful
  fliers, elegant in stark black and white.
AUGPLOVD Piping plover. This filename gives away that many of these birds first
  appeared in a monthly Audubon newsletter which I edit & typeset.
SHRIKE Loggerhead shrike, sometimes called "butcher bird" because it impales its
  capture on thorns & barbed wire.
NITEHAWK The common nighthawk isn't a hawk at all, but belongs instead to the
  whip-poor-will family. Seen evenings, sometimes called "bull bat."
HUMMER Ruby-throated hummingbird is the only one usual in the East, though a
  couple of western species are being seen more frequently.
3HUMMER Three at a feeder. Do not put red dye in the sugar water!
SKIMMER Black skimmer, a member of the tern group, and my favorite shorebird
  because of its graceful flight.
OCTGULLS Generic gulls for an October newsletter.
MENBIRDS Whimsical drawing of people flying.
AFLYPCX The wood stork--used to illustrate an aphorism in my booklet THE RIVER
  IS IN YOU (see below). It says: "River's impossible desire: I want to fly."
BUZZARD2 Buzzard Day for the turkey vulture is March 15.
IBISLINE White ibis with black wing tips fly in long undulating lines,
  especially going to and from roost.
BUZZMANY Abstract design made out of black vultures--or "short tails," as we
  call them.
BOATTAIL The boat-tailed grackle, a large raucous blackbird of the coast.
BOATBOAT The boattail is on a boat.
PIGDUCK An illustration from my booklet, "Three Pig Story" (see below). As shown
  here, certain kinds of ducks take off by pattering across the surface with
  their feet.
WREN The Carolina wren, small bird with loud & varied song.
REDCOCK Head only, of a red-cockaded woodpecker, one of our endangered species.
JAEGER Large predatory seabird kin to the gulls. This illustrated a newsletter
  report about either a "pomarine" jaeger or a "parasitic"--but from the drawing
  you can't really decide which it is.
HUMMERLO A LOne hummer--actually the LO was for LOGO.
HUMMER4 One hummer, seven flowers.
HUMMER2 One hummer, one flower.
FIRSBIRD Abstract generic bird.
CORY'S Cory's shearwater seen off the Georgia coast.
4FALC Four falcon-type hawks, silhouettes, used as a "slug" to mark the bottom
  of a column or to separate articles in a newsletter. See below for a way to
  get a whole disk full of such things.
2NDBIRD Another abstract drawing.
NABSTR1 Drawing abstractly with paint programs is easy and fun--but the results
  can be weird.
ANHINGAB The anhinga, or "snake bird," swims underwater to catch fish, then
  climbs out on a limb and suns its wings.
This particular one was originally drawn as a stained glass design.
BIRDFOUR Generic bird; a slug for newsletter.
SWIFT2 Simple abstract bird, swift-like.
STARBIRD Why isn't there a constellation of a bird?
NPILEATD But it's not the ordinary pileated woodpecker, it's its extinct cousin,
  the ivory-billed. Note the white patches on the wings! Nope--today we see only
  solid black wings--the pileated.
NOVBIRD3 Can be stacked to form a flush-right column. Notice how I used the
  dotted-line tool, and left the dots to look "arty."
NABSWIFT Okay, I was a beginner trying out the tools.
NABSTRA4 This could be a jay fighting--or any bird.
NABSTR2 Sometimes I just try to capture the spirit.
GOSHAWK Large secretive hawk of deep woods. Just the head.
FOURHAWK Another slug. Generic hawks.
FEBTURK Turkey. With pattern fills such as this, the way it ends up looking
  depends on what size you make the picture when you load it.
FEB6TURK Wild turkeys travel around in little flocks.
FEBGREBE One of several kinds of grebe. A slug of six.
SKIMCIRC Another skimmer, this time drawn up as a stained glass window design.
  Want a disk full of window designs? I'm working on it.
ALBATROS As the caption says, it's the yellow-nosed.
MERGUS Mergus serrator, the red-breasted merganser. Eats fish and tastes real
  gamey.
NGRUS Grus canadensis, the sandhill crane, cousin to the more famous whooping
  crane. These migrate over our city in noisy flocks--quite magnificent.
NYCTI Nycticorax nycticorax--literally, night crow. It's a heron, the
  black-crowned night heron. Is hard on frogs.
T5 Here begins a series of drawings of screech owls. They illustrate a booklet,
  "Tremble: First Night for an Owl," available to you in print or on disk (see
  below). Here are three chicks at the bottom of their nest-box.
T6 Adult owl in flight, seen from above. The booklet includes a number of
  pictures not included in this present collection.
T7 Mother screech owl coming in for a kill. If you order the book or disk, you
  get to see how this all fits together.
T9 The owl chick has to scramble up the bare inside of the box using its feet,
  beak, and perhaps wings.
T10 This is Tremble, sitting alone in the night foliage.
T11 His mother brings him a fat insect--a roach, I hope.
T12 Screech owl chicks start out gray and fuzzy. Later most of them turn tawny
  red.
T13 Looks like Tremble in flight, against oak leaves.
T14 Adult brings small rodent.
T15 Tremble perched among sweetgum leaves.
T16 Tremble's two sibs perch facing him, in a pine and a hickory.
T18 Tremble's parent attacks intruder--me, as a matter of fact. One little drop
  of blood for science!
T19 Owl looks out from among leaves (on our suburban property we have 40 kinds
  of native trees).
T20 Silhouette: owl in sky, 3 chicks perched in woods.
T22 Owl behind yellow poplar leaves. I put this favorite graphic on my cover.
T23 The three baby owlets look tired.
T24 Three owlets stretch their wings.

2. About the artist.

Anselm Atkins is a professional stained glass artist with over 500 installations
around the country, mostly southeast. For several years he published cartoons.
His scholarly articles on theology and literary criticism have appeared in many
professional magazines. An amateur naturalist, his articles on birds have
appeared in numerous journals. He edits a monthly Audubon Society newsletter
using desktop publishing equipment. Having entered the computer world in 1988,
by 1991 he was leading workshops at the International Glass Expo on computer
design for stained glass, and has published on that subject too. He has written
and illustrated a number of whimsical booklets, which he is currently in the
process of self-publishing. And now his first novel has appeared (see below), a
story about a bizarre nature-loving woman. His second novel--an entry in the Ted
Turner "save the planet" contest--is being read by a publisher.

3. What you get if you register:

You have a choice among several things, listed here. They will be on 360K disks,
5 1/4 inch.

A. Another disk, "Disk A," with 20-25 more bird graphics. This will, I hope, be
the first in a second set of disks (you can order them as they appear, if you
get on my mailing list). NOTE: Ask me to custom-make a few drawings for you, and
if you're one of the first ten or so to order, I might be able to fix you up.

B. A copy of my "Tremble" booklet, PLUS a disk with the story on it and the rest
of the pictures not included herein. This is a children's story, simple in
language, and based on my personal experience.

C. A copy of my "Three Pigs Story," PLUS a disk with all the graphics that go
with it, for your use. In this adult fable, the builder and the architect see
their houses of sticks and bricks go down the tubes, while Suzette Pig, an
artist, makes a straw house that wins all the prizes. People have been raving
about Suz Pig--the first edition sold out, and you'll get one of the corrected
Second Edition. Signed, of course.

D. Or would you rather have a copy of my odd tale, "The Christmas Turtles"? The
illustrations for it are in pen and ink, not computer; however, I can throw in
my cat drawings for a computer work-in-progress, "Bytes the Computer Cat." He's
not a laugh a minute, just sort of droll. But he may be the only cat you know
created by a MOUSE!

E. That booklet "The River is in You"--is a collection of aphorisms, computer
illustrated. This booklet, like the others, was typeset by the author using
"Ventura Publisher." The amazing thing is that one can do all this on an IBM
computer, sitting at home! Disk comes with it, in case you want to use any of
the graphics.

F. A new disk with 25-30 newsletter "slugs" (like some in your disk set) plus
other nature subjects (turtle, greenbrier, ivy, butterfly, etc.). Shells,
spiders, snowflakes, trees, bugs, birds, feathers--abstractly drawn &
decorative. I'll throw in a little limited-edition illustrated booklet, "Alice
by Anselm," for as long as they last--please specify your second choice from
other booklets above.

You get ONE of the above choices free when you register. But if you want MORE
than one (like, you want A & C & D), additional choices are $5 each--post paid
(that would be, like, "A" free with $10 registration, plus $10 more for "C" &
"D").

4. Other neat stuff:

If you like birds, there's a chance you might like G:

G: That novel I mentioned--is called "The Notebooks of Lana Skimnest." Lana is
a young girl who thirsts for birds--we get to read her early unpublished nature
notebooks. Later she becomes a famous ornithologist & poetess and has all sorts
of weird escapades. Strong on butterflies too. Reviewers have had really
encouraging things to say about the book--"cult classic"--"charming"--
"absolutely entertaining"--"super artsy"--"offbeat beauty"--"extraordinary piece
of work"--"gifted with both intellectual depth and considerable emotional
force." So if you like nature--and if you can read something a little off the
wall (I mean, slippery sex between moths and orchids isn't your typical New York
material)--Lana Skimnest could be for you. I did all the typesetting for it
myself--no problem with "Ventura Publisher" and a laser printer. But the
edition is small, and you might not find it in your local bookstore (it's from
Micah Publications). So order direct from me and you'll save money and I'll make
more. Paper, 250+ pp., total $11.95. (Delivery free!!).

H. Another illustrated computer work in progress is "Thirteen Ways to Slice an '
Onion." It tries to be more than mere cookbook. Let me know if you're
interested, and I'll inform you when it's ready. It+disk will be the usual $5.
All these booklets come from my "Hexagon Publications." I shoulda named it
"Hardscrabble."

I. If you like birds you may be an environmentalist like me who wants to "save
the planet." And that's exactly why I entered Ted Turner's fiction contest. I
didn't win, but I've got a great second novel sitting here, on disk, with lots
of good ideas in it, and no one to read it. It's not your normal page-turning
sort of fiction--more like a Platonic dialogue (but then that's what the winning
entry, "Ishmael," is too). It is 450 pages consisting mostly of intellectual
interchange, with some prettier sections for relief--and hey, you better also
like evolution theory and population control. Reminder: though unpublished, it's
still copyrighted material, and cannot be used by you for sale or profit. But
you and your friends can enjoy the disk for $8, until such time as it's
published.

J. Circle "J" below if you're interested in a disk of stained glass window
designs. More info in future--nothing sent now. Yes, I'm self-employed--all this
is called "scruffling."

5. Registration form:

Name (print) _________________________________________________________
Address
__________________________________________________________
City, State, Zip
_________________________________________________________

Today's date________________Keep on Mail List--YES--no_____

Send what I circle:__A______B______C______D_______E_______F

G________H______I______J

(If "A," and I'm registering early, could I have some of these special birds
please? __________________________________________________________)

For all this, I'm enclosing my personal check for $________

......................................
PLEASE SEND YOUR REGISTRATION TO:

                ANSELM ATKINS
                2525 MCKINNON DRIVE
                DECATUR, GA 30030

Please allow two or three weeks for delivery. I might have some pressing
deadline to meet, or I might be on vacation when your order arrives.

Thank you. I hope the graphics you have purchased as shareware will serve some
of your needs. And if you'd like to try any of the above additional items, sight
unseen, for hard cash to the author, that would be excellent. --Anselm