Olly Is Back

Hi all, A few posts ago I revealed one of my failures. It wasn't on the same scale as the sinking of the Titanic but I wasn't happy about what I'd produced. Some of you will remember my image of Olly the owl and I guess some of you may still be laughing about it. For those with short memories or those new to this blog, let me explain. I had a solid piece of wood, a bit like something cut from the end of a plank and I wanted to do some pyrography on it. I decided that an owl peering out of a hole might be good and set about burning in the bark with my pyrography iron. In fact, I was very pleased with the stylised bark pattern, but then I did the drawing of the owl, using coloured pencils. From there it went down hill faster than a bob sleigh full of hippos. Using good old hindsight I would have been better doing a pyrography image of the owl but I wanted to introduce a shot of colour. Anyway, you can see the end result below.

To be honest, like most artists when I'd finish it I wasn't quite sure if it was good or bad so I showed it to my wife. I patiently waited while she studied the image and waited for her to say

that's great

like she usually does. Not this time however, because she just burst into laughter as did my mother-in-law when she saw it. At this point my wife could see I wasn't happy and asked if she could recue it by painting a proper owl on it. If it hadn't been for the fact that I'd worked so hard on the bark I would have probably whacked it straight in the wheelie, but I decided to let her see what she could do with it. So what became of Olly? I hear you ask. Well the answer is below. When my wife showed it to me for the first time I was quite stunned. She is a great painter which I think is evident by the result shown below, just compare the two to see what I mean

By the way,I'd love to know what you think about it. Changing the subject altogether, I'm giving away a free ebook containing 12 of my favourite short stories. It will be available for the next two days 15th and 16th of May. The book is entitled, No Fishing In Here: Just short Stories. It is available on smashwords. just click on this link then when you get to check out put in the following coupon code Coupon Code JY87S and you will be able to download a free book. If you've arrived at this blog after the 16th of May please pop along to my website because I often have details of other free books on there. If you want to see more of my pyrography please click here and or pop along to my shop at Folksy.