Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Bosuilen / Tawny Owls

Here are a bunch of Tawny Owls,
drawn after this beautiful reference.

The Tawny Owls are for a children´s book project, I can´t say any more.
What I can say is that I´m not used to draw after reference.
But it looks like I am getting it.

In the end I practiced a bit with Tawny Owls in flight,
The two owls to the left are Barn Owls.
Here is where I got the reference.

Ja, de eerstkomende kinderpagina is af, het ging toch nog sneller als ik dacht. Degene die ik de kinderpagina heb laten zien vonden mijn nieuwe idee erg goed. Het idee is dat ik in zeven keer door een boek van de bijbel ga, met elke keer een mooie zoek en puzzle-plaat. Jullie komen de tekening nog niet te zien, nog niet.

Naast de kinderpagina´s ben ik ook nog steeds voor een kinderboek bezig. Eigenlijk zijn we nog niet echt begonnen. Ik moet nog altijd bij de schrijfster langs om beter kennis te maken. Ondertussen zit ik wel lekker te schetsen.
In het boek zijn uilen, En naar aanleiding van hoe de uilen en het landschap (habitus) dat in het boek beschreven worden, ben ik Bosuilen (Strix aluco) gaan zitten tekenen. Mijn studie Bos- en Natuurbeheer is dan niet helemaal verloren.


Jepp, the next "children´s pages" are in the box, until they will get published in a couple of months. I have been showing the new pages to some people, and they were very positive about my new idea´s. You guys will have to wait until it gets printed.
The idea is that we will go through one book of the bible, and learn how to read and study the bible. Of course with a lot of fun and activities. Studying the bible can be like "connecting-the-dots", or "find the five mistakes".


After the children´s pages, I am still working on that new children´s book. I have been sketching owls as you can see above. Because we have not really started to work together, I am taking my time to sketch some of the not-so-important things. From how the owls and the landscape (habitat) are described, I had figured that we could best have Tawny Owls (Strix aluco) in the story. I haven´t totally wasted my studies in Forstry and Natureconservation.

Listening to: Dan Adriano in the Emergency Room

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello!

I like your images with the tawny owls!
Is your book with the owls finished?

I like the tawny owls and have a owl project in Switzerland.
www.strixaluco.ch


Greetings Dani

Unknown said...

Hi Dani,

I am glad to hear that you like my drawings,
The book is not at all finished, and it will take at least half a year at most. I can let you know when we get the book published.
At this point I can not tell so much about the book, but the owls play an minor but important role in the story. The book is not about owls.

The author let me decide about the owls, and I chose the Tawny Owl mostly because it was the best fit for both the geography and habitus. Sperlingkauz and Rauhfusskauz were my other alternatives.
I have studied Forestry and Nature-conservation in the Netherlands before I ended up as an illustrator and designer in Norway. I have worked in a few national parks in the NL. I found it very interesting to read about your owl-project, it sounds like something I could have ended up doing if I would have stayed in NL. Experiencing and being out in creation is still the best reference for drawing.

One thing that I still want to improve with drawing these owls, are their intense black eyes that are in contrast with the colors of their feathers. I think it´s important to get that right.

Greetings,
Jan Willem

Dani said...

Hello Jan

I would like to know, if the book with the tawny owls is finished yet?!
Do you have designed more paintings of the owl?

Greetings Dani

Unknown said...

Hello again Dani,

Yeah, we got the script back from the publisher.
Just have to try again, many times.

When I have been working with this story, I have been doing the main (human) characters, rather than the owl.
There are a few owls in a corner here.
http://jwmiddag.blogspot.no/2012/11/sweetums-those-first-dozen-pages.html

Would actually be cool to make some "special designs", for the one owl, that´ll give it some character.