This teacher has a thing for birds and the work of John James Audubon! For the last project in Adobe Illustrator, birds were the subject matter. Bird feathers, colors, and markings lend themselves well to the Illustrator techniques that were required for this project: gradients, blends, and meshes. Each student choose a photo of a North American bird and traced it using the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator. With the goal of rendering the bird as realistically as possible, students used gradients, blends, and meshes in their digital drawings. Completed illustrations were then brought over to Photoshop, and combined with photographic imagery representing the birds' environments. Artistic filters were applied to the background images. Layer styles were applied to the birds and to their names, which were typeset in fun fonts. This was the students' first foray into the wonderful world of Photoshop, where we will remain for the rest of the year. Adieu, Illustrator!