The title is obviously a bit of fun wordplay. Two crows being an “Attempted Murder” because three or more crows together are commonly called a murder. These crows are not necessarily crows however. The difference between a sitting or standing crow and a raven visually is the possession of a larger bill, slight sheen color differences, and a different tail shape. Beyond that, it is a size issue. Ravens are though most apt of the two types of birds to travel in pairs. Crows rarely travel in twos. I purposely made these birds appear in a position to not allow proper distinction between the crow and raven. You may view these as either ravens or crows depending on your tastes.
I feed crows and ravens daily. Usually mixed nuts, but whatever is at hand does the trick. I’ve two groups that watch for me. One is a group of young crows on the east side of my downtown that hope for donuts, but usually get nuts. The other is a small group of crows consisting of two older ones and two youthful ones. This second group is joined by two ravens usually. On rare occasions it is just the oldest raven and the youngest crow. I haven’t figured out their relationship yet. Obviously these groups of crows have changed over the years, but as some go away or disappear for whatever reasons others replace them.
This painting was partly inspired by those crows and ravens I feed and partly inspired by the Norse mythology of Huginn and Muninn.
If you are not familiar with that mythology then my addition of explaining it won’t warm you to this art anyway, so I’ll refrain from a long-winded bit of babble about Odin’s ravens.
Maybe I’ll give it to you on another day with another painting featuring these dark and spookily intelligent birds.
If you are digging this painting you may acquire prints HERE via Pixels / Fine Art America.
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