Barred Owl - Omar

After a lengthy gap due to the untimely death of my computer, I am now able to scan and post artwork again! Hurray! The laptop I was using in the meantime had a very poor screen, so it was several months before I could scan any work. Here is a continuation of the previous post, finishing the painting of Omar, the barred owl.

Shadows and Details:


At this point, I really started pushing the shadows, particularly in the left of the image. Unlike with opaque media (acrylic, oils) where you generally work dark to light, with watercolor you work light to dark. Lifting color is possible, but difficult, and you can never go back to the pure white of the paper once the paint is down.

I also put in the detail of the wings with a wash of sepia, and darkened the eyes with a mixture of van dyk brown and payne's gray. At this point, I've only used a handful of colors. If you add too many colors, you tend to get mud, and the painting can fall 'off key'. The colors I've used so far have been sepia, van dyk brown, raw umber, payne's gray, dioxazine violet, ultramarine violet, and naples yellow. White gouache is what I used to pop out some of the feathers in the shadows.

Finished Painting:


A loose wash of sap green, cadmium yellow, and viridian green helps pop the grayish-brown figure out. I used a mixture of van dyk brown and payne's gray for the feather shadows on the wing, with a dab of white gouache for the highlights on the eyes.