All in the eyes

How to paint a barn owl using a limited palette of watercolour, by Kerry Bennett

2024-04-19 -

Ihave always been fascinated by owls and grew up surrounded by them, while frequently hearing tawny owls in my garden at night. One of my favourite subjects to paint is the iconic barn owl, being one of the quietest birds of prey; the unfortunate rodent or other small creature is completely unaware of its fate as the owl approaches.

The colourful plumage and the shape of that face, those large dark eyes, speckled wings and head with the body so white and so eye-catching – these all make for a wonderful subject to paint.

I loved the idea of painting a closeup portrait of a barn owl loosely, concentrating on the detail in the eyes. I chose this image for its pose, that look to the side at something being spotted and the abundance of soft colours and fluffy feathers.

The subject

I began by dividing the image into thirds, horizontally and in half, vertically (above). This helped me to place the features correctly.

If you wish, you can make a smaller grid using a ruler; create squares the same width as the ruler, both horizontally and vertically. This is a great tool to help achieve the correct proportions and angles.

Once I had drawn the grid,

I made a shape of the negative spaces, the shapes that surround the owl, as this also helped me to see the overall height and width of the owl. I also visualised a smaller grid within each square, which again helped me put the shapes in the right place. You can draw this smaller grid if you wish.

Step 1

After drawing the pencil grid onto the paper, add the detail of the owl. Once you are happy with your drawing, take a putty rubber shaped into a sausage and roll it over the graphite, lifting the pencil marks until they are just visible.

Step 2

Begin mixing puddles of colour, one each of yellow ochre, burnt sienna and Payne’s grey.

Make these quite strong, knowing that for those areas that need a lighter shade, it is just a case of taking a little of the dark mix to make another puddle and adding more water to create a diluted version.

Step 3

1 Before wetting the paper and applying paint, add a little masking fluid on the highlight of the eye. If you miss this, you can always revisit it later and add a mix of white gouache and a little blue. I also used a ruling pen – you could use a dipping ink pen or a very fine brush – to mask out a few of the fine feathers around the beak, the eye and the bridge of the nose.

2 Once the masking fluid is dry, wet the entire bird apart from the beak and the eyes. Take your time wetting, giving it at least three layers of water and keep moving the brush around for a while so the paper is saturated evenly with no puddles forming. Taking the time to thoroughly wet the paper is a very important stage when painting wet into wet.

Step 5

1 Using the same colours as before – burnt sienna, yellow ochre and a little Payne’s grey –paint random brushstrokes on the top of the head while also flicking a little using a No. 6 Round brush. 2 The next step is to sprinkle a little salt on the top of the head. For this to work, the paint has to be damp; mine was a little too wet and the blooms were bigger than I wished, but it still gave me the soft feathery look I was after.

Step 4

1 With diluted Payne’s grey, paint the shadow areas above the eyes and under the beak. Add a little to the chest and on the cheeks, using a small brush with only a small amount of paint on it. Before applying your brush to the paper, scrape the paint off your brush onto your palette or tap it on a tissue; in this way you will have more control over where the paint goes and how far it spreads. If it spreads too far, use a clean thirsty and damp brush to lift it from the paper, wiping and cleaning the brush on a cloth or tissue in between each brushstroke.

2 Add burnt sienna around the beak and eyes whilst the face is still wet then add small amounts of burnt sienna and a Payne’s grey dark mix on top. Re-apply if necessary, but remember to keep using very small amounts of paint on the brush. As the face is still wet, carry on painting the heart-shaped markings around the face using the same technique, and a little of the Payne’s grey, burnt sienna and yellow ochre – and darken the little feathers on the cheeks.

Step 6

1 Whilst this is drying, paint the eyes. Dampen the larger left eye a little, leaving the pupil free of colour, and paint it with burnt umber, using a No. 6 brush; also darken just under the eyelid. Leave the eye to dry thoroughly before painting the pupil black and removing the masking fluid from the highlight.

2 Do the same to the right eye, keeping the brown just a little paler right at the bottom of the eyes.

Step 7

Move on to painting the wing. Dampen the area of the wing well then apply burnt sienna and a small amount of yellow ochre, and dab (or flick) a little Payne’s grey. Then, making sure the paper is not too wet – wait until you see the the sheen and the texture of the paper – sprinkle a little salt.

Step 8

Now on to the beak. Apply a layer of burnt umber, lifting a little right at the top to create form and a highlight. Whilst wet, paint a little of a strong Payne’s grey mix on the edges and tip. Make sure it blends in well so it doesn’t look too outlined, and lift the paint again if you feel the highlight is not light enough.

Step 9

1 With the owl completely dry, it is time to remove the remainder of the masking fluid. When I did this, it looked as though I had lots of little white worms all over my painting and so I needed to embed them into the owl, making them a part of the feathers.

2 By using a small dampened flat brush, I scrubbed gently so that the paint surrounding the white area became loose and softened over the tips of the feathers. I did the same for the little eye bristles, again, softening very gently.