Canara-Owl

By Niya Christine. Copyright

#107/365 Paintings

Sam was a pet store canary for many years. He was one of the few that didn’t want to be picked, purchased and taken away from the pet store. Sam was a bit of a closet journalist. He liked to listen to the facts and chirp out the stories at night when the store closed. Canaries are pretty, so people hung out around them and spilled some of the grittiest details about their lives.

But there was one conversation in particular that Sam couldn’t get out of his wonderfully feathered head. It went something like this:

Boy: “What do you really want, though?”

Girl: “To be a boy.”

Boy: “Yeah, but that’s in the works…”

Sam perked up. “In the works?” Sam wasn’t the least bit interested in becoming Samantha. But, he realized that if a girl could become a boy (a magic trick for sure) then he could become what he had always wanted to be: An owl. Suddenly, he wanted out of the pet store really bad. So, he preened for days in front of potential buyers. About 3 days later a very nice elderly couple bought him. He tried to escape to the woods to become an owl, but something luckier happened. The old man was an artist. Sam and the old man bonded. Sam would drag out newspapers and magazines with owls on them and take naps on top of the photos. The old man painted one of Sam’s owls. Of course Sam thought he had understood his complex psychology and loved the old man all the more. But the man simply wanted to paint an owl that day. Sam stared at the painting for days. And, just last week he chirped out a 1/2 “Who.” The old man laughed so hard. “You’re a Canara-Owl” he said. Sam was very pleased with himself.

Owl in Love with Sparrow

Mixed Media by Niya Christine. Copyright

#47/365 Paintings

The owl let out it’s large talons, skidded on the dirt for a split second before scooping up the sparrow for dinner. The sparrow in his panic rolled several times before the snap of a wing and then dent of a pupil. He was done for. There was nothing uncertain about that. He dazed off as the great owl flew him to her nest. The sparrow had grown very weak. She pushed him aside as she prepared a small pocket of twigs around his body like a placemat on the dinner table. With her huge beak she pulled him from his non-broken wing. It confused her why she took care like this—not to hurt him, since she had just pummeled him and was about to eat him. He looked at her then from his torn up eye as if to say, “please… this hurts, go ahead.” It happened then. And she couldn’t tell you why this sparrow in particular. But she suddenly wanted nothing more than his wholeness. She pulled up the softest twigs she could find to support his wing. She fussed over him all night long. A red tail hawk tried to swoop in to eat him and she obfuscated him with one swift kick. What was she to do? She only destroyed tiny birds. She had no idea how to fix him. She put her body over him with special care that he breathed and kept him warm all night, hoping by dawn he would be whole again. She imagined the great adventures they would have together. He had a hold of her heart good!

In the morning she woke with a start. A shimmer of hope and happiness. She lifted her large wing and gently moved the twigs aside. She wriggled him. But it was no use. He was gone.

So this is how the great owl fell in love with the sparrow and kept him in her heart to this day.

…………………….

Project notes: This piece is the result of the multimedia class that concluded today (mentioned in previous posts). I’m thrilled to have learned how to do this. My technique is the opposite. Simply draw and paint, I’d forgotten about so many fun things like charcoal, gesso, pastel and more. I love how the images emerge and layers and layers later they introduce themselves as the characters they are. There will be more of this style in the future, I’m sure.