Here's finally new work in progress - close up of ural owl. Ref. photo taken in our zoo by my friend, poor owl was held by another person (privileges of zoo workers LOL). I love these deep, black eyes so I thought it'd be good to paint.
Steps so far... below. My camera made it a bit to brown, nevertheless I have a lot of layering ahead even on parts you can see here, mostly with greys, white grey and some desaturated blues. I'm using Derwent Drawing, Coloursoft and Artists on heavyweight paper with slight tooth, 21x29cm size.
Started with the eye - if the eye goes ok I move on, if it's bad and lifeless I know it's not worth it
Working on the "face"...
And here you see my method - marking darkest areas and working according to them with lighter colors, then going back on darks to blend them in.
This is what I have after a little more than one hour, I tend to work fast when I know what to do and this is pretty easy, regardless the mess of feathers that I need to suggest further from the eyes ^_^
And close-up of the work - a bit rough looking but it's due to my camera and when I tried to make scan it was even worse so...
It still needs more defining light and dark areas but it's just about thin layers of petrel greys and mid greys in dark areas and some chinese white to bring out lights.
Updates soon!
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