Owl Journal Page

This owl journal page was inspired by a recent Kelly Rae Unscripted video. I love watching Kelly Rae’s weekly painting videos and get lots of ideas for techniques I can incorporate into my own art.

First I painted the background, then stenciled on a pattern with ink. The tree was collaged with pages torn from an old magazine, then painted over with inks and granulation medium. I sketched the owls on to the page, cut out feathers from scrapbook papers and glued them down with Mod Podge. The leaves are cut out from scrapbook papers and outlined with ink. I used coloured pens for outlining, inks for shading, and paint pens for the moon and moonlight.

 

Handmade owl album

A wise old owl sat in an oak. The more he heard, the less he spoke. The less he spoke, the more he heard. Why aren’t we all like that wise old bird? – English nursery rhyme

I recently went to a class to make an owl album, which we did over two mornings. The first morning we made the owl from tissue paper and glue. I hadn’t done papier mache since my early school years, and it was a lot of fun building up little bits of tissue paper on top of an owl pattern, getting sticky fingers, and watching him take shape. Next we constructed his surrounds. The bricks surrounding the window he is perched on were cut into polystyrene and painted. A photograph provides curtains for the background, and the decorative frame is made from chipboard. We took our owls home and put them in the hot water cupboard to dry for two weeks, then at the second lesson we painted our little owls, added the eyes, then learned how to construct the album from scratch and put it all together.

I was so pleased with the end result! I used to collect owls and I am still enthralled by them. I am going to fill my album with all things owl-related.