A wise old owl sat on an oak, the more he saw the less he spoke

Painting and taking notes again. Onward!


Gouache in my lovely color wheel palette. It's been a couple weeks since I last painted, but the paints are still wet.



Sketch. I'm using a source image with a grid. I always print them in black and white to negate color information, and the grid helps with shape and placement.


Barn owls have such spooky faces.


This is new watercolor paper. I won't be using it going forward, as it warped something terrible. Eventually the paper had buckled so extensively it actually folded over and creased in spite of being taped to the board on all edges. I'll have to go back to my previous brand.



Trees are usually one of my favorite things to paint, but these all felt very stiff and weird and at the wrong angles.


Warped paper! I was struggling with the foliage and everything else at this point, getting frustrated. I decided enough was enough, this is a painting to not finish.

I really like his wing, though.

Next attempt! I still want to do an owl, but now I'm going to draw with Sharpie pen and color with markers.


Above is the new sketch. Same owl, smoother marker paper. It's less absorbent so you can sort of move the ink around on top of it.


Pencil over ink. I had to be very careful when erasing the pencil from underneath, it can smudge the ink easily on this paper.


Feet! I love crosshatching with black pens.


I decided I really liked the grid, so I'll keep it and make it part of the final drawing.


Inked grid. I used a ruler to keep the lines straight.


I used four shades of blue Prismacolor marker to color the background.


Above is the finished drawing with the tape edges removed. You can buy it at my art site, kandeart.com for $50