Oil Painting of "The white sage's hunt" - The snow

In my previous post I wrote about my many attempts to create my dream sky for the snowy owl. Well this time I had bit more luck at my endeavours with the snow. I actually succeeded to create some texture on the ground with the knife tool. Maybe I'm beginning to understand it...or it might just be one of those lucky beginner tries.

Here is the previous version and the new one. (The color difference is due to lighting, the first picture was taken during the day with natural light and the second with artificial light)

 Old

 New

Don't be fooled by the beautiful white highlights on the snow texture's edges; those were the effect of my camera's flash. I do fin them really cool, so in the next step I will try to replicate them with actual paint.  I also hope to be able to add some spring long yellow grass, shadows in the snow and details to the mountains.

If you look closely and compare both versions, in the new version I've added details and highlights on the owl. I've added, dark blue highlights in the feathers, on the face and around the wings, yellow highlights on the wings and on the top of the head, details in the eye's color. I've also added some yellow highlights in the sky.

I've tried to create a bit more depth by painting some of the mountains lighter to show they're further away, but they are still lacking details.

I take little steps, but with each one I feel like I bring it to a hole new level ! I may go to sleep as I am satisfied for today and more news in about a week.

Oil Painting of "The white sage's hunt" - The sky

I was looking for an animal looking impressive within its movement. I stumbled across the Snowy Owl  residing almost on my door step. The Snowy Owl also known as the Harfang des neiges migrates to Quebec in Canada for the winter. It is a beautiful bird because of its white color, but most of all it is Quebec’s official avian emblem. 

A friend of the family takes amazing pictures of this great bird and others as well. The picture I've taken as a reference to create my painting is unfortunately not one of his but might be in the future. For this piece I have chosen a photograph from Vicent Munier.

I have painted the owl in photoshop first to create my composition as you can see in my portfolio. I started painting on the canvas, but it's only after the fourth attempt that I've achieved a degree of satisfaction with the sky texture and colors.

As you can see the first attempt was unequal from one side to the other of the upper wing. On one side there were strokes and on the other dark clouds coming in. I was missing fluidity.

In the second attempt I tried to create a sun down but I was missing texture so I complemented it with version 3. This 3rd version of the sky and first version of the land was qualified as a river of blood with a satanic sky by many of my critiques. 

I wanted a serene feeling on a spring day were snow started to melt and grass started to show. After 2 weeks I put together enough courage to repaint the sky for a fourth time. In Version 4 I found some texture and serenity and it is the sky that will remain.

From now on I will have to work on the land and the mountains to give the painting depth and more texture and color in order to get that spring mood.