Honestly I never drew anything more than a straight line in Illustrator. I am an artist, I paint and I draw but I wasnt able to build stuff with shapes in Illustrator and I always wanted to.

I didn't use the PDF guide, instead I drew thiswhile listening to your instructions so I can familiarize myself with the tools and commands too.

I used this pallete http://www.colourlovers.com/palette/4535595/Blackberry_Wine but it turned to be a bit too dark so I changed the colors a bit.

 

I also made a few mistakes, like I forgot that holding the option key duplicates the project. So what I did for most part was ctrl + c ctrl+f and then option key...So I duplicated twice..ouch.

But good thing I noticed. Here is my screen

And my final [bit dorky] owl: