Moonlit Hunter is my latest painting. It shows an elf owl (Micrathene whitneyi) in the Arizona desert under the light of a full moon. These sparrow-sized (4.9"-5.7"/12.5cm-14.5cm) critters are the smallest owl species and eat mostly insects.
The Native American pot is somewhat a product of my imagination. It has an owl motiff -- I've never seen a pot like this, but I've seen pottery figurines of owls. So I used the basic design of the figurines and placed them on a pot. The owl is actually sitting on a piece of cholla wood that ended up in the pot somehow.
The winter constellation Orion the Hunter appears in the night sky. It seemed appropriate to go with an owl -- a hunter!
The painting is my own, but it was inspired by a piece by the late Larry Toschik that appeared in an old Arizona Highways magazine. Unfortunately, prints of it were never made available or I would have gotten one.
Enjoy!
Mark Junge
