On Saturday, Ashley Halsey, a Mystic native, now Portland, Maine resident, returns to her roots — Coogan Farm Nature & Heritage Center — where she took her first watercolor class at 7 years old.

Halsey will be at the nature center signing copies of her new book, “Beautiful Songbirds … and the joy they inspire,” featuring 30 watercolor illustrations of melodious backyard birds found in North America and abroad.

An illustrator, graphic designer and fine artist, Halsey says she loves exploring the natural world and painting what she sees in it.

As soon as she could hold a paintbrush, Halsey says she never had the intention of being anything but an artist. Halsey attributes her passion for painting to growing up on a farm in such a scenic area, where she had the opportunity to take painting classes through her teenage years before leaving home to study art at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York.

Halsey is excited to be coming full circle and introducing her new book at Coogan Farm.

“It’s wonderful,” she says. “I’ve had mostly a lifelong connection with the nature center. I volunteered there when I was a junior and senior in high school. I went to the nature center camp, took painting classes with (local artist) Elizabeth Gaus, and I’ve contributed pieces — wildlife paintings — to their (natural history) calendar for the past several years.” 

The songbird project

After graduating college, Halsey worked as a book designer in New York City for just over six years, continuing to do freelance work, including producing a book, “Colors of Mystic,” for the Mystic River Historical Society.

She moved to Maine in October 2014, where her fiancé lives. They will be getting married in her parents’ backyard in Mystic in early June. Halsey works as a designer in the greeting card department of Sellers Publishing in South Portland, the same company that published her book.

The head of the company’s book department asked her if she’d like to illustrate the book as a freelance project — to create 30 full-color illustrations of songbirds, each accompanied by inspirational bird quotes and facts.

“They publish a lot of these five (inch) by five (inch) gift books that are always 64 pages and they’re always looking for a new concept,” Halsey explains. “I said yes, I love nature and painting and it’s a great opportunity.”

The book was Halsey’s largest project to date and took about eight months and 175 hours to complete. She says it was a huge challenge to create 30 accurately detailed paintings of the songbirds.

The editor sent her a preliminary list of birds, and Halsey says she agreed with some of her editor’s choices and added others.

“We mostly focused on Northeastern birds — the biggest market for this company,” Halsey says, “and chose them based on location, variety and mostly color; there are a lot of brown songbirds to balance with the rest of the color palette.”

She says she creates her compositions based on extensive photo research.

For example, to paint a rose-breasted grosbeak, she had to find out where it lives, where it’s found — in trees or on the ground?

“Chickadees and cardinals and the tufted titmouse were all in my backyard growing up, so it was easier to imagine them in (their habitat),” she explains. “Birds like the Scarlet Tanager, I hadn’t seen before — they’re mostly in southern Texas and Mexico, so I basically did a lot of photo research and compared it with what I read about the bird to come up with a natural composition.”

She says she loves the variety of color and settings the birds in the book represent and admits, “It was a challenge to keep each composition lively and unique while still maintaining a cohesive look throughout all of them.”

Halsey enjoyed using watercolor, her favorite medium, for the project.

“It’s the most interesting,” she says. “With oil and acrylic you can always fix a mistake, there’s never an end to it. Watercolor is more fleeting. You only get one shot (although) you can tweak a little. And you never know exactly what it’s going to do, depending on how much water you mix with the paint, it can change the (outcome).”

Halsey says both painting and being a steward of the environment is extremely important to her.

“I feel a strong connection to the environment and the cause of protecting and advocating for it,” she stresses. “I’m interested in creating artwork that can help the wildlife creatures that don’t have a voice for themselves. I’ve become quite an environmentalist over the years.

“To say our natural environment is important is an understatement. It’s critical to our survival. It makes my work feel worthwhile.”

“Beautiful Songbirds … and the joy they inspire” (Sellers Publishing) by Ashley Halsey is $9.95, hardcover.

IF YOU GO

What: Book signing and talk with Ashley Halsey, author of “Beautiful Songbirds … and the joy they inspire”

When: Saturday from 2 to 3 p.m.; immediately following the signing, Maggie Jones, executive director of the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center, will lead a short walk to listen for melodies of birds featured in Halsey’s book.

Halsey also will give a talk/signing at Bank Square Books in Mystic on July 23 from 1 to 4 p.m.

Where: Coogan Farm Nature & Heritage Center, 162 Greenmanville Ave., Mystic

Cost: Admission is free for members, $10 for nonmembers. The book is available for sale in the Nature Center store. To register call (860) 536-1216 or visit www.dpnc.org/calendar.