Owl Mixed Media Art Lesson

   

I've been wanting to do an Owl Art Lesson for a while and Fall seemed like the perfect time.

 I'm going to use watercolor paper and black card stock,  watercolors, white acrylic and white chalk pastel.

To get the sizing right I'm going to give them a template with the outline of the owl to trace onto the watercolor paper.  This is 8 1/2 X 11" paper.  So if you print your own from the photo you have the size.

Once they have their "owltline" done they do the lines on the ear feathers.

Now from the bottom of the ear draw a line from each side meeting in a V in the middle.

Using a penny trace each eye with a little bit of the penny over the V.  It won't be a complete circle.

Begin the beak, but don't complete it yet.

Draw a curved line below the beak, then draw the curved lines from the V to meet with that curve under the beak.

Finish the beak.

Now create the large pupils in the Owl's Eyes.

Add the curved lines on the eyes next to the beak.

Now you can decorate however you want to create texture and feathers.

I began with a scalloped line under the face for the neck and added a wing.

Added another scalloped line to the top of the wing.

Added longer feathers under the line on the wing.  Now go over the pencil lines with Sharpie.

Now we are going to start adding color.  I use liquid watercolor which is very vibrant.

I want my students to begin with a warm fall color, orange,yellow or red.  Then use that color selectively on at least 3 parts of the owl.  

We will also look at my examples and talk about complimentary colors.

After doing the top of the head I mixed red and green to make a brown, trying to work fast to get a little wet into wet blending where the two colors meet.

Now add the other two areas with the warm color chosen.

For the front of the Owl we are going to do a wet into wet wash with the warm colors.

Since I have Yellow as my selected color I began my wash with orange.  If Orange was my selected color I would have chosen yellow or red to get a contrast.

The Eyes are the focus with the owl, I chose to do Orange and Yellow together. More brown for the beak.

Now we are going to choose the complimentary color for Yellow which is Purple to finish our base layer of watercolor.  Had we used Orange it would have been blue like my other example.  Red would have been green.

Using brown I added some feathers at the top of the head.  Using a dark blue more lines in the face to show the texture of feathers.

I added some more feathers with w shapes repeated in red on the front and brown and blue on the wings.

Before I teach this I'm going to show my students several ways to do feathers and they can choose how they want to do it.

Now add some highlights with white acrylic paint watered down.  On the face, top of the head, ears, beak and spots on the chest.  You can also add some brown spots.  I just used the tip of my brush to make the spots.

Finally, cut out your owl and put a moon on your black card stock with a chalk pastel, and smooth is around with your finger to create a glow around the edges.  Glue your owl to the black paper.  You can add stars or a tree etc...  But it is more dramatic with just the bright owl and moon.

Happy Fall!