Title: “Long-eared Owl with Oak Foliage (floral map)”
Artist: Michael Autumn
Medium: Hand-drawing with digital gouache
Giclée archival print on fine 100% cotton canvas (matt)
Hahnemühle Art Canvas Smooth 370gsm + Hahnemühle UV protection matt varnish
Size: 36″ (W) x 50.9″ (H), canvas stretcher 38″ (W) x 53″ (H)
Edition: Limited Edition of 101
Authenticity: Hand-signed (front, bottom, far right on white canvas border) with graphite pencil (varnished over with same UV-protective matt varnish as whole) and titled (front, bottom, centre on white canvas border)
Date: 04/2024
TL;DR
This artwork is an homage to visual perception – it’s about how we detect meaning from the millions of individually coloured photons entering our eyes – and how I, as an artist, can trick you into seeing what I want you to see.
Owls, like this one, are incredibly well camouflaged – not so much by their colouring, but by their habit of staying completely still, most often in a tree, during their time of rest and sleep (often during the day). So much so, that you could literally walk within feet of them and you probably wouldn’t even realise they are there. Likewise, in this artwork, you have to really look to see the owl…
And there is a reference to the idiom – “you are what you eat“…
Long-eared Owl with Oak Foliage (floral map) is the simple colouring-in (albeit very carefully selected and juxtaposed colours) of a flat line drawing I did previously of this art puzzle design (see the photo of that artwork below and this post: Long-eared Owl with Oak Foliage (Art Puzzle)).
I used this technique to regularly check for line breaks (where there shouldn’t be any), and to get a better view of the shapes of the individual pieces I was designing – amid a sprawling mesh of simple black thin lines on a white background. This got me to thinking about the difference between the dumb mechanical process of colouring a shape (of a flood fill) and true animal (human) understanding…
This is (obviously!) part of my floral map series. See Guillemot with Egg (floral map) for details.
Diary Of An Artist 