The Big Hoot – Tea T-Owl

I’m really excited to be involved with The Big Hoot, which is taking place this summer in Birmingham. I’ve just finished painting my owl, and can’t wait to show it to you!

The Big Hoot

The Big Hoot is a huge, public art project. Over 100 owl sculptures are being painted by artists, and will be on display around Birmingham this summer. The owls are 1.6m high and 1m wide. There’ll also be around 100 owlets – smaller versions of the owls, which are painted by schools and community groups.

The Big Hoot is organised by Wild in Art, who also ran Gromit Unleashed, with the Aardman sculptures around Bristol, and similar projects in other cities, including gorillas, dragons, London buses and even giraffes in New Zealand.

Painting My Owl

Joining the project at last minute meant my owl had to be finished to a tight deadline. It was a huge job, and took much longer than I expected, because the owls are so huge! I worked on my owl at the Big Hoot painting space in Birmingham, near the Custard Factory. It was great to meet some of the other artists and see progress on their owls each day. As an artist or designer, you spend so much time working on your own that it was a nice change to be in the shared painting space.

Painting my owl took over 70 hours, plus time for glazing so it has a lovely shiny finish. I worked on it every day for a whole week, into the late hours of the evening!

I’ll post more photos once The Big Hoot starts next month, and there’ll also be a time-lapse video of the painting on Cakes with Faces’ YouTube, so you can see my owl come to life.

Visit the Owls this Summer

The owls will be taking over the streets of Birmingham on 20th July, and will be on display for 10 weeks. After that they’ll be auctioned to raise money for Birmingham Childrens Hospital. Why not spend a day owl-hunting around Birmingham?

I can’t wait to see all the other owls, and to see mine on the street! I’ll let you know where to find mine – keep an eye on Cakes with Faces on Facebook and Twitter!