WIP: Great Horned Owl

WIP: Great Horned Owl. Scratchboard (etching on Claybord Black), 10 x 8 in. Copyright 2007, Tania Nault.

I thought this was far enough along now to show you. I’d originally etched out the iris right down to white, thinking I would colour this board. But I after I returned this weekend I took one look at it and knew I wanted to keep it in black and white. I put the grey tone for the iris in with an ink wash.

The original ref is from a photograph by Matthew Hull on morguefile.com – a wonderful resource for artists of every stripe – and although it was those wonderfully striking eyes that orignally captured my attention, I believe it was the almost bewildering variety of textures in the feathers that held it.