DrawWithMike.net

LindasPencils wrote: ↑Fri Nov 22, 2019 10:14 pm Hi my old friend Laurene! This is developing nicely - and aren't those striations in the feathers an absolute bitch? But you are handling them very well!

Hi Linda! It's been a long time! I'm so happy to be in touch with you again!

Oh, and about those striations, YES, they are!!!! I wonder what it says about me that I love drawing them?!

I have to laugh Laurene - one of the many 'found' objects I bring to my workshops are feathers for students to draw. Great practice items. But it is inevitable that someone chooses the owl feathers, and oh my! they don't realise what they are in for!

I can imagine! They're can be pretty complex, but they're things of beauty! This is a study of a Great Horned owl feather that I did on Strathmore toned paper. I used pan pastels and graphite pencil because they're both pretty forgivable. Pan pastel can hide a multitude of sins!

Here's another quick update. Slowly making progress.

That feather is divine! I haven't tried pan pastels yet, only soft and pencil versions. Progress on the owl is progressing well!

Thanks Linda! Here's another quick update. The wing feathers need a lot more work and there will be part of a foot and talon showing on the right. These owls have very sensitive hearing and often sit still and hunt by sound. Here, he's actually looking directly behind him, as though he just heard the sound of prey.

I'm drawing the markings on the back and breast feathers by putting them in lightly with a 2B pencil and then going over the area with either a 2E or a HB pencil depending on how light in colour the area is. I'm sorry the scan is so blurry. I think that happens when I reduce the resolution to 72 dpi.

I've gone over most of the owl now, but I'll fiddle with it more once the stump is done. I'll also try to fix those talons that don't look right at all. I think that once I get some shadows under them they might sit a little better.

I always struggle with composition. The idea here is to suggest that the owl's gaze is locked on a prey animal that it just heard off to the left. I'm also trying to twist the stump to the left to mimic the owls pose, and to position the broken branch to follow the owl's gaze.

Laurene wrote: ↑Sun Dec 08, 2019 8:50 pm I always struggle with composition.

Well, you're not struggling with this one I think this is going to work spectacularly well!

Thanks Mike! I must have gone through a dozen or more iterations before settling on this one.

Great comp. Its perfect.