Black Owls

I bought some wool which is soft shiny dark dark grey without checking on black owls. In fact, when I started this process of making owls, I deliberately didn't look at pictures of owls. I didn't look at other's homemade owls after the first one, I didn't look at pictures of real owls until I had made maybe 40 or 50 owls. I think I wanted to just get the essence of owl that we all recognize even though it isn't very realistic.

So now that I've gotten down what it is I like in my owl figures, I'm looking for inspiration in real owls and there seems to be quite a number of black owls. I wasn't much of an owl person before, but I'm beginning to see the attraction. I should qualify that... we used to see a real owl in our yard and hear the real owls in the trees. That was exciting and gratifying that our yard should be attractive to them. The sad thing is, I haven't heard an owl for almost a year now. They are taking down trees in our city everywhere, and there's not much left for habitat. I'm trying to remain positive though, we are growing trees in our yard as fast as nature will allow, and my friend down the street saw and heard one recently, so hopefully I'll get to hear "our" owl again someday.