Tawny Frogmouth … a tad obsessed? Well finally it this year as Australia’s Bird of the Year 2025!!!

Although I had decided to focus on Waratahs because it is currently Waratah season, I am taking a quick a well deserved detour to focus on of my all time favourite birds ….. the Tawny Frogmouth.

This is in honour of the fact that the Tawny Frogmouth has made into the final list of Birdlife Australia’s ‘Bird of the Year’ for three years, this year it has finally been named Australia’s 2025 Bird of the Year. The link to the Birdlife Oz website explains why the Tawny is so special, and the fact that it is not an owl!!

Back in 2008, I hit Tawny Frogmouth peak obsession, not that it ever has really waned but 2008 was when I produced a series of artworks of Tawny Frogmouths. I have taken thousands of photos over the years and done a lot of sketches and drawings. In the early 2000’s I started writing a children’s book about Tawny Frogmouth’s, but have not ever completed it. Let’s just say it is on a very long ‘to do list!

So in 2008 I started doing hand coloured linocuts and drawings, producing a series based on photographs that I had taken over the years. The first is a pen and ink with watercolour drawing, ‘Tawny Stare’. I posted two blog posts about the process and completion, links below.

Here is just a very small selection of some of the sketches, drawings and illustrations I have played around with for years. These include playing with different materials and styles for different effect – watercolour, paster, pencil and pen and ink.

This next linocut was based on an original film photograph I took which I used as a source for my pen, ink and watercolour illustration. I combined several photographs to create the image I wanted. I then developed this into a design for a linocut with the idea of perhaps using it as a style source for the children’s book.

Tawny Frogmouth Glare – Linocut

I have sourcing nearly all my images I used for my artwork from my own photographs. I love taking photographs and use my viewfinder as a way of looking for aspects that I can use for artwork. The next two Linocuts, both produced in 2008 also came from photographs I had taken. I also worked them into drawings and then designs for the linocuts.

Like with all my linocuts, I wrote about the process. The links are below.

The final artwork is a series of we closely cropped images of Tawny Frogmouth facial expressions. I called it ‘Evry Move you Make … Watching You’. These started as a series of small pencil line drawings, then pencil shaded drawings, then linocut designs. I changed some, moved them around until I was happy with the final series and layout. Again this was produced in 2008. I find tawny Frogmouth facial expressions endlessly interesting and fascinating.

And just to finish, these are links to all my previous posts and photographs I have written about on this blog.