Snowy Owl in Watercolors

1. Intro: Snowy Owl in Watercolors: Hello, and welcome to my home studio. I'm Emily, and in today's Skillshare class, our goal is to relax and have fun while painting with watercolors. This snowy owl Skillshare tutorial is designed for all skill levels and only takes 40 minutes to complete. It's the perfect short painting project for any busy artist. You'll have access to a printable template that you can use to either trace using a light box or window or to sketch out on your own. And you'll also have access to an instruction sheet that has picture references and written instructions to help guide you throughout the tutorial. In the step by step video tutorial, you'll learn how to use a wet on wet technique to create a textured feather look that doesn't require painting individual feathers. We'll then layer a wet on dry shadow and tie it all together at the end with some splatter. So get your paints, paper, and brushes ready, and let's get started painting a snowy owl using watercolors. 2. Wet-on-wet Sky: Alright, so the first step in painting our snowy owl is to paint our sky. I'm using a large quill brush to wet the sky area. So I'm only wetting up to the horizon line, and then I'm going to really carefully wet around our snowy owl. Remember that wherever our water is touching, that our pigment is going to go there. So we do want to take a little bit of caution and care at this stage. Uh, now, I'm really making sure that this sky is nice and wet. So you'll notice I'm continuously grabbing more water, and I'm going over the same area multiple times. Now, doing this will allow the water to actually soak into the paper, and it'll give me a little bit more time to paint. I'm then grabbing a little palo blue. I'm mixing it slightly, um, on my palette just so that I don't get any really dark sections. And I'm coming in from the edges of my painting and dragging some of that blue inwards. As you can see, I am leaving a little bit of the white of the paper to shine through, and that's going to mimic some clouds here. Once this blue is in the position that I want it to be in, I'm going to switch brushes. I'm going to start using a smaller size brush. This is a round size four. I'll wet it and I'll grab some pigment directly from my palette. Now, I'm using a carbizol violet here, and then I'm also going to mix it with a little bit of indigo. At times, there'll be some indigo on my brush. At times, there'll be some violet. I'm going to paint along the horizon line here. Once again, I don't have that much liquid on my brush. If you're noticing that your colors are going all over the place and they're spreading way too far, two things might be happening. One, you might have too much liquid on your brush or you might have too much liquid on your paper. We really want a concentrated color when we're adding this colorful skyline. We want to make sure that we're doing this while the sky is still wet. You notice that I'm working fairly quickly. That's on purpose. If my sky starts to dry, I don't get this really nice seeping color. I'm going back now that I have that little line work done, I'm going back and I'm dotting some color to create little blooms of trees. Most of the color, most of the blooms that I'm creating are with either that purple or indigo. But I did add a little bit of turquoise as well, and now I'm adding a little bit of quinocadon gold. You can use any colors you'd like for this sky. I just wanted to keep it in these jewel tones. Now that I have the color where I want it, I'm actually going to tip my board upside down, and I'm going to allow the colors from that horizon to slightly pull downward. Now, you might not need to do this at home if your colors have already expanded, but you can use this trick to create more tree like shapes. We do want to keep these shapes to be very soft, and we can only do that while it's still wet. Now, before I finish working on my sky, I'm going back to that horizon line and I'm making sure that the horizon line is really nice and crisp. So I'm going around the snowy owl head. I'm going over that horizon line. I'm making sure that my edge is really clean. I need to make sure that I clean the edges before I let my sky dry. And then the very last step is if I have any pooling that's happening around the tape line and the edge of my painting there, I do want to clean that off. The reason being is if it when it starts drying, I might have that color or that water push back into the sky and create a nasty bloom. 3. Snowy Foreground and Yellow Eyes: Alright, so now that I'm done with the sky, I'm going to move on to the foreground with the snow. I am going to switch back to my quill brush, and I'll do a fairly similar technique. It's still going to be wet on wet. I'll wet my quill brush. I'll make sure it's nice and clean. This time, I'm going to wet around my snowy owl. Since my snowy owl is white, I do want to make sure that the color around my snowy owl is something other than white. Now, you'll notice that I'm only wetting the area up to that little mid horizon line. I don't want to reach my water all the way up to the horizon line since my sky is still drying. So I'm kind of stopping at that midline. And then you'll also notice that I'm not painting water all the way to the bottom of my painting. I'm just kind of painting in that mid level. Now, whatever colors are on my palette, they're all the colors from my sky. Now I'm going to go in and just add a little bit of shadow to that wet area. So I'll make sure that I'm leaving some of the paper to shine through. You'll notice I'm using horizontal lines for this. And I also want to kind of have the color butt up against my snowy awl as I draw my color down to the bottom of my paper, that area is dry, and so I'll have a harder edge at the bottom of the paper, and that's okay. When we're painting snow, we do want a combination of soft edges from our wet on wet and hard edges from our wet on dry. Now, watercolors is all about babing your drying times. And so as I'm looking back at the sky, I'm realizing that I want some sections to be slightly darker than what this horizon line is looking, and I know that it's still wet, so I still have that glossiness. And so I'm grabbing some indigo and dropping in just a little hint of indigo along the horizon. Now, if your sky has already started drying at this point, I do not suggest that you add any color. This is only if you're noticing that your sky is still wet and you want to make some little changes. And then before I start working on the body of my snowy owl, I'm grabbing a little yellow. This is a gamboge yellow, and I will be painting the eyes. Now I want that first layer to dry, and so I'm painting these eyes wet on dry. My paper is dry, and I'm just painting my first layer. 4. Wet-on-wet body and shadows in the Snow: Alright, now it's time to start painting our snowy owl. I'm using my medium size brush, so this is my round size four. And I am starting with the wing that is the little kind of cutlet of wing. It looks almost like a chicken breast. I'm painting that with water. So I'm going to be painting each section of my snowy owl using a wet on wet technique. My water can be slightly tinged at this point. If your water if you're noticing your water is looking a little dirty, I suggest switching it out, getting some clean water. And like I said, I'm taking some real time and patience to make sure that every section of this wing is nice and wet. Now I'll take some of that quinacridone gold. If you don't have this color, make sure to check out my list of alternatives to use. And I'm making sure that my brush doesn't have a whole lot of water on it because I want this pigment to stay where I'm placing it. You'll notice that I'm taking this pigment directly from my palette with a wet brush. I'm not adding more water to it. I'm not mixing it on my plate. And I'm just dropping in this quinocrton gold along some of these edges to give it a little bit of color. Now I'll wash my brush, and I'll grab some indigo directly from my palette. I do have a little bit of water on my brush. It's a damp brush. It's not a wet sopping brush because I need that indigo to stay where I put it. Now this concentrated indigo, I'm going to be making little dots along the wing. Now, if your dots that you're making are looking way too jaguar, I would suggest to make little U shapes. Make sure these dots aren't too perfect. You notice you're watching me make some of these shapes. They're starting to bloom a little bit. The pigment is starting to expand. Some of the shapes are little swishes. And because I'm working from a reference photo, I'm just trying to look at where are the most concentrated of these darker spots of the feathers. I don't want to actually paint each individual feather. I just want to give the illusion that the feathers are there. And when I do this wet on wet, my pigment is going to automatically expand and give me that soft feathery look. Now, where you see on the template that there are some lines along the template, these diagonal lines along that wing, I do want to make sure that I'm concentrating the indigo along those lines. And then along the base of that wing there, I'm making a few more almost vertical dashes, and that's going to mimic some wing some feather looks. Alright, I'll do this same technique for the little section above my snowy owl on top of their head. I do want to make sure, though, that my sky is dry enough for this since I'm touching and budding up against the sky. If your sky is still really wet and dry and you notice that glossy shine, I would wait a little bit until that sky dries enough. I'll wet that little section on top of the head first, and then I don't actually I'm not gonna add any of that quinacridone gold. I'm just adding a few dots of indigo. So the top of the head by this little shape is where these dots are. Alright, so since I need to give a little time for those two sections on my snowy yll to dry, I'm going to start working on that last section of snow. I added a little water to some of those original colors that I used for the snow. And now with my round size four brush, I'll start by painting wet on dry this time, just along the edge of those little snow hills. Now, I'm painting on dry paper this time and leaving a few sections of this dry paper to shine through only because I don't want to It's a small section and I don't feel like I really need to wet it ahead of time. Um, I am using the edge of my brush, and so I'm making sure that these snow hills are looking really nice and fluffy. If I use the tip of my brush, it might look a little bit too much like linework. After I paint a section of the snow, I can always go back and drop in some darker pigment wherever I think I need more shadow. Now, once again, I'm making sure that the area that's butted up against the snowy owl is that I have color there so that it contrasts with the body of the snowy owl. Now that we have our soft background done on our snow that we did wet on wet. Now we want our second layer to be wet on dry. So I mixed a little of my halo blue in that watery section that I used for the snow. And now I'm painting a hard edged shadow going along this right side of my snowy owl. Now, I'm kind of keeping this shadow in between the template, the little lines that you see on your template. But then I'm also adding a few little additional lines off of that. The key to painting this shadow here is try not to make your shadow look too perfect. So you notice that I have some kind of edges that are a little bit more squiggly. It's not a completely straight line. And then once I paint that shadow, while it's still wet, I'll drop in some of that more intense thalo blue closest to the body of my snowy owl. Now, you can always use a different color here. I do find that that really bright thalo blue works really well for shadows in snow. It makes it seem I brightens up the painting a lot. It makes it seem like the sunlight is reflecting off of the snow, but you can always use a darker tone like an indigo. Now, I'll also add a few wet on dry. Remember this is dry paper. I'll add a few dry shadows and lines along the foreground. I'm kind of adding these randomly in the foreground, and the only reason I'm doing this is to add just a little extra texture almost to the snow. By adding these little shadows, I'm just giving it a little bit more detail in the foreground. 5. Shadows in the Face and Finishing the Body: Alright, so while we wait for the snow to dry, we're going to finish up painting the body of the owl. Remember, we'll continue painting the rest of the body wet on wet. And I am breaking it down into manageable sections, so you see I'm starting to paint this left side of the body. So I'll wet it first with clean water, and then I'll go and I'll grab just a little bit of that quinocradon gold, and I'll add just a little hint of color here. So it looks like I accidentally used the indigo instead on the upper neck area, and I really do want to do the quinacdon gold first, because it is the lighter of the two colors, and it's more of a shadow that you see on owl's body. So I cleaned my brush, grabbed the quinacradon gold, and now I'm adding it to that left side of the wing. And then after I add that gold, now, I'll go back without washing my brush. I'm just grabbing indigo directly from my pan, and that's going to make sure that my indigo is really nice and opaque, and I'll dot it on that left side of the wing. Now, because this wing is sitting underneath the wing on top, it is going to be a little bit darker. However, I'm being very careful to not blend my indigo and with the water behind it. That's really important. We don't want a gray color. We want those dark indigo dots. So I need to let that section dry, and so I'll start working on some of the shadows on the head of my snowy owl. I'm just adding a little bit of water to my indigo that I had on my palate, and I'll start by adding some shadow around the outer edge of the head. I'm going to try to keep the same shape of the head that you see here. So you've got that little M on the forehead. And so I'll try to keep that shape as much as possible. I'm going to add a little bit of shadow around the eye. Making I'm trying to keep that shadow more towards the inner edge of the eye. And remember, if it gets too dark, you dry your brush, and you pull some of that color off with a dry brush. Now I'll also while this section is wet, I'll grab a little bit darker of indigo directly from my pan, and I'll drop it in mainly around the outer edge here. I want to really create the illusion that this head is three dimensional, and so it's going to be darkest on the outermost edge. And I'll continue the same shadow, that lighter shadow on the right side. So once again, extending that shape into the head and then adding a few little lines down along the neck to resemble some feathers there. And then I'll add a little bit of shadow at the top of the head, as well as on the inner edge of that eye. Now, when we get to painting the beak, I'll still start off with that really light indigo, and I'll start by painting a little bit of a V at the bottom of that line. This is going to help to have some of that white that's kind of hiding the beak. There's some white plumage around the beak and it's hiding it. And so adding that shadow on the lower V there is going to indicate that there's some plumage there. I'll then grab some more concentrated indigo, and I'll come back and I'll add that concentrated indigo along the outer edge and then add some more of that concentrated indigo to the beak. Alright, so while we leave the head of our owl dry, let's continue working on the body. So once again, I am going to wet this under section here of our snowy owl. Now, this is the only section that's going to look just slightly different as we paint, and that's mainly because we will be using a lot more vertical hash marks to show those feathers. And you'll be able to follow the guidelines that I drew out for you. So after we wet the area, just like before, we continue adding just a little bit of that gold color, that burnt orange or quinacridone gold. And that's just going to help us to you know, have a little bit more of that golden color that snowy owls sometimes have. And then we'll take our indigo directly from the pan, and we'll start at the back by adding a few vertical lines, well, kind of diagonal lines along the back to indicate those tail feathers. And then we'll keep adding our dots to the bottom of our snowy owl. One thing that you do want to make sure to do in this section is to slightly outline the bottom of the wing with your indigo. It's going to make sure that that top wing is going to really come out from the body. So we need to make sure that there's just more of a shadow there. So this lowest section of your snowy owl should really be the darkest. Remember, we want to refrain from over mixing our colors into our water and really allow those dots to sit. Now, I did wash my brush and I dried it off. And now I'm just making a few color corrections where I'm lifting a little bit of that indigo where it got a little too dark. Alright, so the last section here that we're painting, of course, we started when on wet. We'll add just a little bit more of that burnt orange color to closest to the underside of the wing here. And now, make sure that this little section of your snowy owl is going to be the lightest that you've painted so far. And so I'm using barely any of that indigo. And my little spots are more dashes, and they're kind of dashes at a diagonal. I think that's pretty important to help with the shape of your snowy owl. And then we're also going to add a little bit extra of that indigo along the top here and kind of slicing it down under that wing to show that that wing is sitting on top of the body. 6. Black Details in the Face, Grasses, and Splatter: Alright, so the last details, I'll add with a really small detail brush. I'm using a black color and adding a little bit of black detail into that center pupil. And then I'll pull a little of that black along the upper outer edge of the eye, as well as underneath the eye. I'm not completely outlining in a full circle. Like I said, just pulling a little black to the outside edge on the top of the eye and then around the bottom. Reason why I'm not adding black along the inside of the eye on the top is because I just want to avoid it looking too much like makeup. By adding the darker section along the bottom, it's going to really give this bright bold staring effect. Then I'll also grab some black and I'll quickly outline the line down the beak there, and that's going to help the beak to stand out a little bit more as well. Alright, so now that our owl is done, we'll focus on our background. Now, this step is completely optional, but you can always try to add a few little strands of grass in the background. Now, instead of using a green, which I haven't used at all yet in my painting, I'm going to stick with some of the colors that I have already used. And so my grasses are going to be this burnt orange color. And so I grabbed a little burnt orange. I added some water, and I mixed it into kind of a medium transparency. I'm using a round size four brush. But if you have a smaller detail brush for fineer lines, you can also use that one. And so I'm going to add grasses into clumps of four strands, three or four strands, maybe three to five strands in just a few different sections of my painting. Now, to add a little bit of depth and color to these grasses, I decided to add a little bit of grass shape and extra grasses with the indigo, as well. And so I grabbed a little bit of that indigo, and I'm adding a few grasses using my indigo. Now, as I was looking at these grasses, they're kind of a little bit too perfect to me. They're a little bit too in focus. And so I'm grabbing a slightly larger brush. This is my round size six. I added some water onto my brush, and I'm just going over these grasses with water. And my goal here is to just blend those out a little bit so that I have some hard edges in those grasses, but then also some soft edges, too. Um, this is just kind of a last minute decision because as I looked at the piece, I noticed that these grasses were kind of taking away from my snowy owl and I wanted the focal point to continue to stay on my snowy owl. So I just decided to add a little bit of water to kind of tone those down. Now you see that I'm taking my paper towel and I'm just dabbing away. If any of that color got too intense, if I wanted to make it seem a little bit more transparent, I can grab some of that color up and lift some of it up using my paper towel. Alright, so the final steps of this painting, we're just going to add a few shadows to the body of our owl. So we already added some of these shadows to the head. So I'll add a little water to a little pile of indigo I had on my palette. And I'm going to start by adding a diagonal stroke of shadow along the front wing. And then from that shadow, I'll pull a few strands up, add a diagonal, and this is going to help create a look like there are feathers there. And then I'm going to come around the sides of the body, and I'm also going to add a little shadow to the left side of the body, a few little extra wisps of shadow to indicate feathers. And then adding a little bit more shadow to the tail. Now, this all depends on how dark your body, the body of your snowy ell got. If your indigo really spread a lot during that wet on wet stage, you might not need this extra shadow, or you might just need a little extra shadow around the outer edge of the body. Alright, and lastly, to add just a little bit of motion and movement to this painting. I'm going to add a little indigo splatter. First, I'll cover the body, mainly the face and the lightest areas of the owl with a scrap sheet of paper. And then I'll load up my brush with indigo with a water down indigo. I'll hold it in my non dominant hand. And then I'll use a different brush to hit that loaded brush on top. So I'm keeping the splatter down on the snowy area. I'm not having a ton of splatter up in the sky, but I just want to add a little bit of extra texture, a little bit of extra motion to the painting. And that's it. We're all done with our snowy owl. 7. Follow me on Socials and Skillshare!: If you enjoyed this video, I also have a variety of online tutorials on my website, emilymarwatercolors.com, as well as Skillshare for Skillshare members. And I do sell completed physical watercolor kits where it comes with everything you need to paint at home. Visit emilymarwatercolors.com.