Monday, September 28, 2009

SNOWY OWL



These sketches were made at the Rare Breeds Centre at Kington, Herefordshire. This seemed a very shy, nervous bird who didn’t like being sketched! As soon as I made a few cursory outlines it would flit to the back of it’s enclosure and seek cover behind a thick tree trunk. So the details were completed from several digital photographs.

Last week I acquired a good second hand copy of ‘Tunnicliffe’s Birdlife’ which had a watercolour of a Snowy Owl. He was presented with a bird that had been shot just inland from Carmel Head on Anglesea. He painted the bird against a background of the Anglesea coast with an offshore lighthouse.

This set me wondering about a background I might use for a portrait of the bird in this sketch. The Snowy Owl is an Arctic bird so a winter Welsh or Lake District scene may be appropriate.

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