Owls are pretty cool creatures and have some of the most expressive eyes in the entire animal kingdom. So, of course I had to paint a grumpy looking one.
I started off with a graphite sketch on printer paper, not the way I always work, but it’s fun to change things up sometimes.
As you can see there was a decent amount of erasing before I was happy with the sketch.
But that’s the nature of sketching and figuring out ideas, nothing is set in stone until you’re happy with everything.
Well, roughly anyway.
Once I was happy with the sketch, I used a light box to trace the lines using a dip pen and some waterproof inks.
I’ve only worked this way a little bit so far, but man, it is so satisfying! There’s nothing quite like hearing that faint scratching on watercolour paper as lines appear.
Then it was time for watercolours, more ink and coloured pencils, and we are done.
Behold, the grumpiest of owls!
