Owl Eyes

We were treated to another glorious sunny day today (hurray!!!) so the original plan of building the garden fence was put on the back burner - well some things are more important than the garden fence!!!   ... so sarnies prepared,  we headed out to the local animal park with my daughter and her friend.  It was Gary's first visit to this little park and he was pleasantly surprised at the variety of animals there and the 'Pet Corner' where you get the opportunity to get up close and personal with some of the animals including a magnificent 15 week old Eagle Owl.

So for today's painting I thought I'd post a quick watercolour sketch I did last year of an Eagle Owl's eyes and funnily enough it's a year to the day that I did it - weird eh?

Owl Eyes - painted July 7th 2011 from a gorgeous photo on PMP by Angeline Rijkeboer
by Sharon Whitley the Rambling Artist

These beautiful birds have the most amazing hypnotic orange eyes and it was a real thrill to get so close and be able to stroke it's soft feathers - what a treat - much better than building a fence!  I was surprised how big it was already at only 15 weeks.  Here is one of the brilliant photos that Gary took today - you will see many more on his Walks and Wildlife blog here.

A year on, I hope to paint a better version of this magnificent bird so wish me luck and watch this space!