Owls, Owls Everywhere...

Hola!
I saw this cute little owl last week at life.love.larson blog:

He is gorgeous!  I won't show you the "before" photo here - that would spoil the surprise!

He (or she) reminded me of my own owls, who were sitting on a large cardboard box in the garage waiting their final coats of spray paint.  It took me some time to get this little project done!

Here they are!  It took coats and coats of high gloss spray paint to get them to this point and they STILL aren't white (or evenly coated either, but shhhhh, I won't tell if you won't).  My owls turned out a creamy color -- it's a pretty color, but it isn't bright white!  And wouldn't you know it, when I was at Menard's last Friday I forgot to get another can of spray paint to see if a different brand would help make them more "white."  Sigh.  Overall, I am very pleased with how they turned out.  But it took many many coats of paint, mostly very thin until I got impatient near the end, to get to this point.  I don't understand why this is when accounts I've read about people spray painting their owls talk about only a "couple" coats of paint and voila, you have a gorgeous little bright shiny white owl like the top image! 

You can see my "before" owls in my blog post of February 23, 2012!  Over a month ago, geez Jan!
And here is a progress report with a photo of partially painted owls from March 11, 2012.  Geez, Jan!  Well, I did finish up my owls Saturday night, and brought them into the house Sunday morning after I was sure the paint had "set."  So they've been on the kitchen counter for a few days.  But to get the fading light, I photographed them on the dinette table tonight. 

I am tickled pink that owls are such a craze these days, and are showing up in households I would never expect to see them in ordinarily.  That is because the owl is an ancient symbol of the Mother Goddess, and a specific symbol of the Greek Goddess Athene or Athena, the Goddess of War and Wisdom -- some combination of attributes, heh?  Personally, I think we all could use a LOT more Goddess love together with a healthy dose of Athena's wisdom spread around the globe these days.  And yeah, maybe we need Athena to go around and bop some of our silly male politicians on top their big old heads and knock a little sense into 'em. 

Some prior posts on the owl and Athena (these are from the Chess, Goddess and Everything blog):

The Owl

From Barbara G. Walker's "A Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets." See also prior posts on Athena:
http://goddesschess.blogspot.com/2008/01/little-owl-of-athens.html
http://goddesschess.blogspot.com/2007/10/athena-goddess-of-serpent.html

More painted owls:

 

 

There is no "before" pic for this cutey (above) from Vintage Revivals blog, July 30, 2010. 

 

 

This interesting revamp with white spray paint is from High Heels and Hammer blog, April 29, 2010.  The original owl cost the blogger $2.99 at Goodwill!  There is a "before" picture at this post.  There seems to be something really strange about this owl's eyes, though.  I think the spray paint irritated the hell out of this little guy and his eyes bulged out just to get even with his new owner so he still looks funky-weird!

 

 

This was a brown votive candle holder in its former life before it was rescued from Goodwill by the blogger at J & K, April 14, 2011.  She photographed the "before" picture from the back, where the owl also had eyes - literally on the back of its head.  OHMYGODDESS, now how spooky is that???