Artist in Residence Owls

I have just started an online teaching class with a lovely group of artists, through a site known as Artist In Residence .

My first solo class this week was all about drawing Owls. I included some fun facts about these wonderful birds, such as an Owl can turn it’s head 270 degrees, many have asymmetrical ears located at different heights on it’s head which help it pinpoint exactly where it’s prey maybe and that the eyes of an Owl aren’t actually eyeballs at all, they are in fact tubes and completely immobile. Who knew ?

We looked at examples of real Owls and also how different artists used this subject matter in their own work. Here’s illustrations from collage artist Mark Hearld and Children’s illustrator Brian Wildsmith.

Some of my pencil illustrations above and Illustrator Celestino Piatti shows us some of his fabulous midcentury Owls.

Russell George Wilson reveals his textile talents with this beautiful Tawny Owl.

I showed some of my Ceramic Owls, I had more designs than I thought !

Then moved onto some drawing and collage work using the Owl as the starting point and not necessarily worrying about how lifelike it needed to be.

My mind started thinking… what if it was made up of letters, what if it was square and these guys soon appeared lol

After some initial nerves, I really enjoyed the experience and hopefully the folk in the class did too. If you would like to join up you can find more information here, there are plenty of new classes to join in, watch in your own time and places on the site where you can chat and discuss ideas with other artists around the globe.