Finished - Eurasian Eagle Owl

Using the same technique, I worked my way around the chest and back up behind the face.  I first used a No.6 brush to brush in the darks and oranges, then swapped to the No.1 fine brush with a bit of liquin and lightly stroked in the creamy highlights.  Whilst I had my colours on the palette, I darkened areas that needed to be darker for more depth and picked out some feathers that needed that extra flick of highlight.  I used a blue highlight and purple dark for the edges of the bird and feathered this off into the background colours for a soft feathery edge.  All it needs now is a signature!

10th Lesson - Owl

Just showing a close-up of how I've re-darkened the shadow colours under the head feathers with a purple mix.  With a fine brush and some liquin, I have added the dark markings again, then went lighter with fewer strokes.  Lastly I have picked out some very fine feathers with an almost white mix.

9th Lesson - Owl

We've moved on from the face and will start with his chest.  Darks need to be painted in again under the chin so that there is a definite break between head and body.  This dark is more purple as opposed to the red-black we have been using because it is a shadow under the chin.

8th Lesson - Owl

To do the dark ring around the face, I darkened the area behind it first with nice dark orange-reds for depth.  Using a fine brush I went over the dark with gradually lighter colours, leaving the very light highlights until later.  Time to redo the dark ring.  Even though it is very dark, it still needs breaking up, so slightly lighter darks are added still using the fine brush.  We'll add the very light highlights sparingly over the oranges when the dark is dry.

7th Lesson - Owl

I'm just slowly moving outward from the eye area.  So, in this lesson we concentrated on the longer dark feathers under the beak.  I put the darks back in using a mix of Indian Red and Ultramarine Blue.  I then made the deep orange colour and dabbed that around.  I mixed up the purple shadow mix, which is the Ultramarine Blue, Cadmium Red and a touch of Yellow Ochre to feather off the dark feathers, pushing this area into gaps in the feathers.  Using a fine brush and Liquin, I then added highlights here and there to bring the feathers out.

6th Lesson - Owl

In this lesson, we continued with our colours over the top of the head, the two "ears" and down behind the eye.  It is a slow, tedious procedure but worth the effort.  Always paint in the direction of the feather growth alternating between your darks and lights.  With the ear at the back, give it a more muted colour (add purple to your mix) so that it blends into the sky - this will push that ear behind the head.  For those fine lines, add some liquin to your mix and flick the feathers out with a very light touch.  Make sure there are plenty of darks here and there to separate the feathers and create depth.

5th Lesson - Owl

Now that we have covered the owl with all the different tones of orange and roughly painted in where the markings go, we'll start again on the one spot with a fine brush.  You might want to use a bit of Liquin or turps to get those fine lines.  I started from the eye over the beak with a darker mix of purple first, then went over it again with a mix of Yellow Ochre, Red Gold and plenty of white.  Make sure the feathers are separated by the shadowy purple colour to create depth.  This is a bit tedious, as we are using a fine brush and brushing very lightly over the dark beak.  We might add extra highlights when it is dry.

4th Lesson - Owl

We mixed Ultramarine Blue with Indian Red for a lovely deep dark brown and brushed in all the owl's markings.  Make sure you brush in the direction of the feathers.

3rd Lesson - Owl

First thing to do is paint in the dark oranges (we will leave the very dark markings for now so that we don't muddy up our bright colours).  I used Red Gold, Cadmium Yellow Deep and Indian Red.  Make the feathers as dark as you can with these colours because we will layer on the lighter coloured feathers later.  Brush all the different tones in for a soft look for now.  I added a bit of a purple colour for under the head and eyebrow to create depth.

2nd Lesson - Owl

I always start with the eyes on an animal or portrait, so that they start to look real immediately.  I used Red Gold and a bit of Cadmium Yellow Deep to brush in the bright orange first.  I then darkened the top so that it looks set in under the feathers.  I added a bit of Ultramarine Blue to the mix to achieve this.  I then highlighted by adding white to the orange mix and stroked outwards from the iris to give it that striated look.  Just around the iris, I greyed the bright orange off a bit by adding a pale purple colour.  For the blacks, I used a black - something I rarely do.  For the beak I also used the black in the darkest areas then highlighted with a nice light purple to suggest the curvature.

Eurasian Eagle Owl

Our new project for Wednesdays is a photo I recently took in Malta of a Eurasian Eagle Owl.  Falconry is an age-old tradition of Malta and I got to hold this guy on my arm and let him fly off to pick up some food in the distance.  They are a magnificent bird and up close they are awesome.

So, I wanted this to be an up-close and personal painting.  Some of my students drew him a little further back to avoid too much detail.  The colours of Malta, with their bright blue, green and yellow boats were the inspiration for the background.  I used Cerulean Blue, Cadmium Yellow Deep and Cadmium Red Light and just basically blobbed the colours all over the board.  I started with the very light colours and gradually made them darker.  I then made some shadow colours for an even darker tone e.g. blue mixed with a bit of red, green with a bit of red, and dabbed that into the dark colours on the canvas.  Whatever you do in the background, feather it off as much as you can for that out-of-focus look.