EAGLE OWL, PART 1

I'm now back in the US and hard at work in the studio after an interesting time in Hong Kong. I did find some time for pleasure over there including a birding trip with my good friend Richard. Being out and about again brought back many wonderful memories of days spent in Hong Kong watching birds and one specific time in particular - seeing an Eagle Owl in the wild for the first time! I have always had an affinity for owls so seeing such a large and rare owl was very special, so much so that I wanted to have another go at painting one. The image above shows the start in a series of images of a smaller head study, this time done on smooth (hot-pressed) Arches watercolor paper. After a careful drawing making sure I got all the proportions correct, I washed over the whole paper with raw sienna slightly greyed with raw umber and cobalt blue. The sheet was then stapled to a board so that it would dry nice and flat.