Chenoa the owl

If you ever find yourself in the university town of Eugene, Oregon, I would highly recommend spending some time at Cascades Raptor Center. My husband and I were really excited about visiting that wildlife hospital specializing in raptor rehabilitation and release. A lot of birds of different species found their loving foster home there after being orphaned or injured. And each one of them has a personal story.
For me, the most surprising resident was a magpie named Miri, which had been illegally raised and imprinted on humans. Unable to survive in the wild, that cute little bird is totally socialized to people. Every time we happened to be around her big cage, she tried to get as close to us as she could. It was so touching and sad at the same time.
And of course, it's impossible not to mention about amazing owls, which are very plenty at CRC. As soon as I saw beautiful and mysterious Chenoa, a Northern Spotted owl, I decided to make her an object for my watercolor painting.
16''x12'' on Arches watercolor paper

A little bit of summer

16''x12'' on Arches watercolor paper

Poppy heads

Recently, I have added a new painting to my handcrafted journal from Nepal. Made of Himalayan Lokta plant using the traditional eco-friendly process of ancient paper making, this piece of art features unique, rich texture paper sheets. Personally, I find this journal to be one of the most inspiring things in the world :)



P.S. You can find me on Facebook now, let's make friends!

Juicy watermelon

Today I woke up to the birds' singing, which means the spring is knocking on the door! Being in an excellent mood, I hope you are all doing well and staying in good spirits. This small 7''x10'' watercolor was inspired by the morning sunshine and the fresh air coming through my window.



By the way, have you seen the Google's new art project already? If not, you should surely take a look at this. "Explore museums from around the world, discover and view hundreds of artworks at incredible zoom levels, and even create and share your own collection of masterpieces" - that what they offer now! Isn't it amazing?! I've just spent a couple of hours on that website, and still can't stop browsing it.

Plein air sketch

It's not January I am used to. The weather is warm and sunny, and thanks to that, I had a wonderful Sunday afternoon in a local park filled with pleasant scent of pine needles. This colorful tree branch carrying the leaves of the last year was literally begging to be painted. As you can imagine, I just happened to have a sketchbook with me. And not only the sketch, I have also taken photos of the park's beautiful dry flowers. Blended together, the pine's magical scent and the colors of the sleeping flowers created truly charming and mystical atmosphere that turned the weekend into unique artistic experience.

Tropical fish

I had so much fun working on these journal pages! In case you wonder, the background cracks is a result of inserting crackle medium between two layers of acrylic paint: champagne gold and white. I let that "sandwich" dry and then used watercolors to paint the fish on top of it.

Winter owl

Winter is going on which means time for birds to fluff out their feathers :)
9'' x 7'' on Arches watercolor paper