An 'Irruption' of owls
I decided to try out my new rough texture newsprint pad. This is probably the cheapest paper you can buy (well, smooth texture newsprint is a little cheaper) but it worked really well with charcoal and pastels. To capture their beautiful greenish/yellowish eyes I used a crayola crayon (far right - I was drawing in a public library and didn't have any such color with me, but the librarian had crayons), colored pencils (far left- drawing in a preschool classroom, this was all I could find), and finally pencil pastel (center - I came prepared with my own colors this time!).
For the drawing in the center I burnished the paper with compressed charcoal before starting the drawing and then added a lot of the details with an eraser. I added some text for interest in two of the drawings. I drew all of these owls on my lunch break. It relaxes me to make some art mid-day and it makes me happy when I like how something comes out. Win-win!
If you want to read more about the Saw Whet Owls, try this link:
And if you want to look more closely at my drawings, here they are, full-sized:


