Brenda Hoddinott is awesome!

I spent some more time online looking for "how to draw an owl" this time.  Some amusing finds, but eventually I came across a site called www.drawspace.com.  It offers free and membership lessons (I believe there's a certificate option as well) and is primarily run by Brenda Hoddinott.  She's a self taught Canadian artist from the East Coast and wrote 2 books (I have both): Drawing for Dummies, and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Drawing People.  Both can be purchased at Amazon or Chapters.

Brenda is an excellent drawing teacher, and uses some pretty cool techniques like "squirkling"!  Anyway, on this site there was a free pdf lesson on how to draw one of her owls she calls Hooter.  Of course I took this opportunity and printed myself a copy.

It's pretty well detailed with step-by-step instructions on drawing this very cute owl, though I'm not sure what type of owl he's supposed to be.

I decided that since I didn't want to draw just any owl, but a Great Horned owl, that I would modify her steps a little and modify my model a little to create a new image (yes, I have a knack to do things the hard way).

The only flaw with her lesson is that I think we might be using different brands of pencils.  The HB she uses to get such nice dark shadows is a bit too light for me.  Otherwise I think this is coming along well.

It was nice to get some drawing in again.  Lately I've been feeling like all I do is read and research!!  I can't wait to see how this will turn out.  I'm hoping that after I've drawn him, that I will be able to maintain my enthusiasm and interest long enough to paint him.