The recent snowfalls have inspired me to do a winter picture of a barn owl and I’ve been out with my digital camera on three occasions. We may not have this much snow for several years to come so it was an opportunity too good to miss. We had several days with keen hoar frost and clear blue skies and this colouring should work well with the complimentary orange colouring on the owl. I’ve already got a good photograph of an owl which I took several years ago at a bird of prey display. I love painting owls and find that they are very saleable, but placing it in a snowy landscape is a new challenge for me. I also collected various bits of the winter hedgerow – aniseed, cow parsley and knapweed seed heads to work directly from. I really enjoy the challenge of this sort of work and greatly admire Helen Parsley’s hedgerows but find that it is very time consuming - usually the background takes much longer than the animal which is the main subject of my picture. At the moment I have the vision for the picture, only time will if I can pull it off over the next week or two.I do find that being enthusiastic about my subject matter is vital – I’ve got to want to do it, so this is an important factor when choosing what to do next. Obviously, when it comes to commissions I don’t have ultimate control over the choice of photo to work from or the composition, and I feel that it is very important that the client gets the painting they want. I can, however influence that decision to a certain degree and usually people welcome that input.
