Thursday, January 1, 2009

"Two Barn Owls"

In this post I bring you two owls, both are Barn Owls but look very different. The first is a sketch of a Barn Owl from the United States, the typical light heart shaped face and brown markings on the feathers. I think the same species is what you see in the UK, but theirs are slightly different in color or size. I need to research this further! (a note from me...I did put this up in a post back in August, but this shows it scanned in much clearer and the framed version.)

I used watersoluble graphite (graphitint) color pencils to do it, and a waterbrush to blend and make washes with the drawn lines. The property I like about watercolor type pencils is how you can leave the drawn lines if you like, it give a certain texture. If you don't like that, just rub it a little more with the brush tip and it will all go to wash. The original sketch is only 2.5" x 3.5" big; it's already been sold but I do have mini framed prints of it available, note cards and 8x10 handsigned prints.
The original sketch is only 2.5" x 3.5" big; it's already been sold but I do have mini framed prints available (shown below), note cards and 8x10 handsigned prints.
This owl below is an Ashy Faced Barn Owl, an owl I never heard of until I visited the Kielder Water Bird of Prey Centre in Northumberland England. The owner let me take pictures of their owl, telling me it's an uncommon bird even in England. It's a young owl, you can see some of the down poking out from the feathers still. It's dark face contrasted by it's golden feathers were fascinating to look at! I looked it up in my two huge owl books and can't find it in there, time to research this one more also!

This tiny painting was done exclusivly with watercolors and a tiny brush, it measures 2.5" x 3". The original has sold but I have tiny framed prints (shown below) available and note cards. Just email me to inquire: mary@marymcandrew.com

3 comments:

Vilton said...

Hi, my name is Vilton, Your owl is amazing, I love it.

Mary McAndrew said...

Hi Vilton, thanks so much! This is my old blog so if you want to see lots of new things please visit: http://www.marymcandrew.com/blog

Anonymous said...

The Ashy-faced owl water colour is simply amazing! It happens to be an endemic owl from my country (Dominican Republic) and my favourite bird...
I have some pics at www.flickr.com/davalette IF its for sale, I am interested!

Mario D.
www.mariodavalos.com