This painting of a barn owl was the very first one I tried after going to an art and craft show at the end of 2006 and coming across pastel pencil artist Colin Bradley. This is one of his beginner kits which uses just six pastel pencils. You can tell on the original attempt that I was new to all this because I thought I had to fill in all the rest of the paper not covered by the basic drawing. The second time around (this one) I did it properly, but it was more of a warm-up exercise to get my eye in for a much bigger painting I was doing. The warm-up proved very useful and I try to do that whenever I’m doing an original painting. That’s why I’ve kept hold of these Colin Bradley kits over the years and revisited them from time to time. This is NOT one of my Bird on a Perch series, as it is a painting from a tutorial kit.

Medium: Pastel
Size: 38 x 30 cm
Materials: Fabriano Ingres pastel paper. Faber Castell pastel pencils
Mountboard Colour: Not mounted