These oil pastel owls are clearly a favorite, especially around Halloween! You would never know it, but the teen artists who created these beauties are new to oil pastel as an art medium. Most have never used them before.
The artwork was created on black sulfite paper using a reference photo. A piece of white chalk was used to lightly sketch in the owl shape, which, from the frontal view, is basically the shape of a thumb.
Easy peasy!
Next, the eyes and beak were added and any other prominent features, such as a row of dark feathers around the face or "ear" feathers, etc. No tiny details are necessary at this stage; they are added with oil pastel later on.
Now our artists created their palettes for this project. They pulled colors from the pastel set, hold each one up to the resource photo. If it matched a color in the subject, the pastel stick is set aside for the project. This step saves tons of searching time later on! Each artist was also given a piece of black scrap paper for testing colors, textures, and special effects. Sometimes colors need to be layered to get the right shade or tone, so testing colors is important during the palette selection process. Black and white are always added to the palette as well.
To begin filling in the owl, we first created the most expressive part of an owl - the eyes.
Artists tried a practice eye first on their scrap paper. They found the right color or colors for the iris and made a good solid dot. Then they added a black circle or "owl eye" shape around it, and a good solid black pupil in the center of the iris. Now the eye is given life by adding a nice white reflective highlight (dot) somewhere in the eye.
Now they were ready to create the owl's eyes, adding that white sparkle to the same spot in both eyes (both to the left or both to the upper right or whatever).
The beak was then added and the feathers in the face were added as short lines radiating outward around the eyes and from the center of the face.
Beginners find that it becomes easier and easier to add textures, patterns, colors, and larger feathers as you work and become more accustomed to using the oil pastels. I also believe the lifelike eyes give young artists an instant boost of self confidence right from the start - and as they proceed to complete the image.
These artists were so proud of their owls!
Fortunately I had extra black paper for them to take home to practice making even more oil pastel owls. Which they did.
See our previous weblog posts to learn more about oil pastel owl-making :
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