Barn Owls in Coloured pencilsA returning customer commissioned me to create a double Barn owl portrait in Coloured pencils. He was open to ideas and so I created a few mock ups for him to take a look at and choose which one he liked the most, this was the one he decided on although there would be a slight change to the Owl on the left as we would have a Mr & Mrs so the colours were adapted to fit the female Barn owl as the 2 Barn Owls shown here were actually the same Owl photographed at different times.
MEDIUM: Coloured Pencils
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Customer Testimonial
Dear Karen, |
Follow Progress
Whenever I begin a portrait, I usually always start work on the main focal point which are the Owls. The left one would be a little trickier to do and so decided to leave that until later. I knew the wall with the moss would be challenging as it was very intricate and I created this 'brick by brick' so to speak simply to break up the monotony of the detail. Before I can complete the main subjects, the background needs to be applied and I spent a good few hours laying down the base layers before strengthening the finer details and darkening tones where necessary.
Once most of the background had been laid, I began work on the rest of the wall and once it was nearly complete I began to create the female Owl on the left of the picture. This was created from a selection of images in my own personal photography reference library and others that I found on the web just to ensure I got the colouration and detail correct. The portrait was sprayed with a UV protection fixative before finally packaging up and sending it on it's way to it's new home in New York which will hang alongside a couple of other portraits I created a few years back that the customer had purchased from me in 2008.
Previous Portraits owned by the Customer
Back in 2009, I began a new artistic journey with Pastels and created a couple of Pastel portraits of an Amur Leopard and a Wolf, these were admired and purchased by Ray who also commissioned the Barn Owls a few years later. Although I no longer use Pastels, it is wonderful to know that these 2 portraits are in someone's home and being appreciated! Thank you Ray!
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