Wendell the Owl: a photoshoot

So this is Wendell, a scrappy little owl currently living in my Etsy shop while waiting to be adopted. My friend Kelly, who has a nice camera (and is pretty darn good with it) gave Mr. Wendell his very own photoshoot in her backyard, where I have seen an actual owl hanging out.

That’s what inspired me to make Wendell— I met a barred owl while gardening at Kelly’s house. I heard him hooting from across the yard and went looking for him, finally spotting him from about 10 meters away. It was the closest I’d ever been to an owl in the wild, and I was instantly smitten.

Wendell was made using a pair of vintage velvet gloves for his wings, tail, and beak. I’m rather proud of myself for that bit o’ cleverness.

In related news, another sloth has come and gone, having only spent one night in the shop. Eugene (below) went to join Imogene in Chicago, where they will live happily ever after with an amazing person, a repeat buyer! And right on the heels of my first international sale— Arturo the otter went to live in London  last month.

Extra special thanks to Kelly for the awesome pics!

Happy Holidays E’rbody!

Because yay, animals!

 

Yay, woodland creatures! I originally sketched this out for a friend’s wedding save-the-date, but bride was all like “Um, yay nature, but whoa on the animal party!” So I drew a less populated sketch for her, and meanwhile decided to finish this up for another friend’s birthday. Birthdaying friend loved it, because yay animals! Then bride calls me back. Seems the groom was rather smitten with the animals, particularly the raccoons.

So yay animals! I’ll be finishing up that save-the-date in the next few weeks, complete with hand-lettered poem and such. I’ll go a touch more elegant with it– think “light and airy,” she says.

It’s watercolor, color pencil, chalk, and coffee.

illofri: wings

I’m happy to have an excuse to draw these cute little owls for this week’s Illustration Friday challenge.

I drew them out first in ink, and then took a low-res photo with my phone and emailed it to myself. Then I took that into Illustrator and manipulated the Live Trace settings to get the right balance of woobly line and clarity of detail.

I made a few changes here and there (compare the digitally colored version with the scan of the original drawing below.)

I tried a few color schemes, including a brown/orange/grey one that made perfect sense, but wasn’t as interesting as the lime/cyan/yellow.

And then it seemed that the happy fellow on the top needed a reason to be so happy. So I gave him a yellow pork pie hat. He’s pretty stoked about it.

I’ve been playing with vector textures lately to get that sweet vintage look. I was thinking of maybe taking a  screenprinting class sometime this year, and this would make a great first print.

My Society6 store is up-and-running now, but so far there’s just this one print… Must bump that up on le to-do list. If you’d like to see more of my work, check out my portfolio site, or my other blog about a book about a dog.

And hey– thanks for stopping by!

angie brown | owlstack– the prequel