A Snowy Owl

It has been snowing a lot in the Pacific Northwest where I live…

And look who showed up today! All dressed in holiday attire:

This weird snowy owl knows how to keep warm!

I went for a walk all bundled up at Priest Lake, Idaho last weekend:

Lucky for me it was only 23 degrees and not the 7 degrees that is predicted for tomorrow!

I do think the snow is beautiful, especially at the lake.

Happy Weird Bird Wednesday and a Merry Christmas!

Cheers!

Spectacles

Today’s weird bird is wearing spectacular spectacles…

I hope you have a spectacular day!

Happy Weird Bird Wednesday!

Cheers! 🙂

A Sunny Smile

I am taking a short blogging break.  This morning I am having laproscopic surgery on my right hip to repair a labral tear.

I have been trying to prepare for surgery the best I can.  The freezer is full of food, the house has been cleaned and I have lots to read and art videos to watch!

I know that whatever clouds may send…

There’s a sunny smile waiting for me from you, my friends!

May you give away a sunny smile to someone who needs it today! 🙂

Happy Weird Bird Wednesday!

Cheers! 🙂

Trick Or Tweet!

I bring you a sweet treat for today’s Weird Bird Wednesday!

These birds were seen flying from birdhouse to birdhouse on Halloween night:

Can you guess the name of the bird under each costume?

And for extra credit can you tell me what treat that bird would eat?

Answers below…

Have a spook-tacular Halloween! 

Cheers! 🙂

Answers:

1. Ghost – Snowy White Owl – eats rodents, waterfowl and carrion
2. Black Cat – Black Catbird – eats insects and berries
3. Jack O’ Lantern – Jackal (Buzzard) with lantern – small ground animals and birds, snakes, lizards, insects and road kill

 

A Hemming Bird

Today, I decided to challenge myself by limiting my collage papers for creating a weird bird.

These are the materials I chose, some were sitting on my table from previous projects:

I cut out shapes and played with patterns until this Hemming Bird appeared from the coat factory family…

He (or she) was looking a little disheveled, so I added a few details to make him look im-pressive… hehe!

I hope your day “shapes up” to be extra wonderful!

Happy Weird Bird Wednesday!

Cheers! 🙂

P.S.  The weather is finally warming up in the Pacific Northwest!  Time to ditch the coats!! YAY!

A Slide View

I inherited all my parent’s slides and the slide projector.  I have been meaning to view them again.  I have fond memories from my childhood of watching them and eating popcorn in the living room of my family home…

This may sound silly when everything is so digitized today but there was something special about the hum of the fan, the click of the slides and watching photos of us appear on a “big” screen!  🙂

So today’s weird bird, A Slide Masked Owl is in memory of those simpler times:

Perhaps you didn’t grow up viewing slides on a projector but maybe you slid down a slide or two…

Happy Weird Bird Wednesday!

Hope you “slide” through your day with a smile on your face!

Cheers! 🙂

 

A Party Gal And Night Owl

Funny how one idea often leads to another!

I recently created this paper collage for the 100-day project on Instagram (I’m doing 100 days of faces).

“Dottie hoped someone would ask her to dance at the party…”

I found a photo of a face and cut it in half to challenge myself to draw the second half of her face a little differently.  I added collage from a magazine for her dress and a hat from paper I purchased to give her a little zing! 🙂 The background I created with watercolor.

This led me to create today’s weird bird:  “Her friends called her a night owl.”

This one is a bit weird – even for me… but you have to admit, it is quite a hoot to look at!  Lol!  😉

I found an image of an owl, cut it in half and found an image of a gal’s face and matched the two images together.  Next, I traced part of her dress using tracing paper and then cut out a piece of my gelli-printed paper.  I liked the striking contrast with the black and white image with the red.

I found another gelli-print to paste my image to – it looks a bit mysterious with a moon shape in the upper left corner.  The image at the bottom I cut from a piece of collage paper.

I hope you enjoyed learning how I created today’s collages.  These were like a puzzle for me and so fun to do!

Happy Weird Bird Wednesday!

Cheers! 🙂

An Owl From Spangle

There once was an owl from Spangle

Who could dance the midnight tangle,

He could dip and sway

Other birds did say –

From a branch at any angle.

Just a little Limerick to give you a smile today!

Cheers!  🙂

It’s A Real Hoot!

Today is “Draw A Bird Day,” that Laura at Create Art Everyday has continued as an art challenge on the 8th of each month.  Any medium is acceptable and all bloggers are welcome to participate.  I encourage you to do so!  🙂

I wanted to create something a little different for my bird.  Since it is the month of October, I decided on an owl.

I started by drawing the outline of my owl with a Zig writer pen and coloring it with Neocolor wax pastels:

I used a photo reference from a beautiful book I purchased from Amazon called, “Owls,” by Marianne Taylor.  It has “owl-mazing” color photographs in it!  I chose my own color palette of course…

I softened my neocolors with water and added white highlights to the eyes with a gel pen:

Lots of color!  Just what I like – it’s a real hoot, don’t you think?!

Happy Bird Day!  🙂

The Return of Darth Vador

Do you return to a favorite art medium over and over again?  Kind of like watching a favorite movie several times!

I created this owl tonight after returning home from the lake.  I find creating patterns soothing when I am short on time.

Afterwards, I noticed my owl looked a little like Darth Vador from Star Wars!  LOL!

When I was in college, I took an art class that was all about creating patterns.  I really enjoyed the class and got an A!  I still have my art from that class and will have to dig it out and show you one of these days…

I started creating these patterns on black paper with color pencils almost one year ago.  Here is an owl I did:

It is fascinating to see how my work has changed and evolved in a year.  And that I still like creating owls!

I would love to hear what art medium you return to over and over again and what it brings you – Joy?  Peace?  A special memory?

Happy Creating!  🙂