Painting a Trio of Owls in Watercolor: A Two-Color Study in Red
The Inspiration: Going Red for My Mini Art Show
This painting is number six of six mini pieces I created to submit to a mini art show. For the final one, I wanted to do something that felt a little different — and that meant stepping away from my usual blues and greens. I'd been feeling the color red, which is genuinely not like me, so I did a bunch of color studies off to the side first. My main concern was making sure it didn't look like we'd stumbled into one of the circles of hell. A bold red palette can go wrong fast.
After some experimenting, I landed on just two colors: Daniel Smith Permanent Alizarin Crimson and Rockwell Art Landmark, a brown with warm red undertones that also happens to granulate beautifully. Two colors, one mood, three owls.
My Materials for This Mini Painting
Working small required a few adjustments to my usual setup:
Paper: Hot press, 4 x 6 inch block — the whole block cost less than $20, which is part of what makes minis so appealing. My largest paper block runs over $100, so the pressure is just lower when you're working small.
Primary brush: Size 3 DaVinci Cosmo Top round brush. Even on small paintings I'd normally reach for my size 8, but since I was painting each owl individually, the smaller brush made more sense.
Detail brush: A size 2 liner brush for thin, crisp lines at the end.
Reference image: Black and white and simplified, so I could focus entirely on values without getting distracted by color.
Why Owls? Why These Owls?
I genuinely just love painting owls. Their faces are so expressive and fun to work with — the way their feathers form around their faces almost like a heart or a sliced apple is endlessly satisfying to paint. Their bodies are harder for me, but their faces? Pure joy.
These are specifically barred owls, which have these beautiful broken-up stripe patterns across their feathers. That gave me a built-in reason for the way I laid down my darks — not a solid mass of color, but these loose, staggered marks that suggest the bars without spelling them out.
I originally planned to name this painting after Owl Babies, a childhood favorite my daughter loves — three baby owls named Sarah, Percy, and Bill. But once I finished even the first owl, it was clear this painting had a bit too much drama for such a cozy name. I guess that just means I'll have to do another trio of owls someday, a softer one. No complaints there.
(Also, fun fact: a group of owls is called a parliament. I want to do a large painting someday with a whole crowd of owls and title it Parliament Is In Session.)
Working Without a Sketch on a Small Surface
As always, I painted this without a preliminary sketch. On a small surface, that means there isn't a lot of room for error — but it also means fixes are quick when they happen.
And they did happen. On the second owl, I noticed I'd placed one eye too high. I had two choices: adjust the beak and head shape to match, or just move the eye down. Since I was working with only two colors and had already bled the pigment into the surrounding feathers, the fix was actually simple — I went in darker, lowered the eye, and corrected from there.
This is actually a case where painting without a sketch has an advantage. If I'd sketched first and then misplaced the eye when adding paint, I'd still have that pencil line sitting there even after correcting the color. The sketch can sometimes create its own problems. The lesson, either way: watercolor is more forgiving than its reputation suggests, as long as you know how to work with it.
Building the Painting: Eyes First, Everything Else After
My approach with each owl was pretty consistent: start with the eyes, then bleed that pigment outward using directional brush strokes to mimic the direction of the face feathers. This does a couple of important things. First, it avoids that paint-by-numbers look where every element feels like a sticker placed on the paper. Bleeding the colors together creates cohesion — shapes connect to each other rather than sitting in isolation. Second, it naturally draws the viewer's attention down toward the beak, which is right where you want it.
I was really happy with how I managed the white shine in the eyes on these. Leaving that unpainted highlight is the kind of small thing that gives a painting life.
Managing Color Balance with a Limited Palette
Two colors sounds simple, but it actually requires some strategic thinking. I had to make sure I wasn't defaulting entirely to red or entirely to the dark brown. The key was alternating them — but not so frequently that it created a staccato, choppy rhythm. With something nature-inspired like owls, I want the feel to be calm and organic. Too much back-and-forth between the colors too close together and it starts to feel restless.
To give the composition some visual balance, I added a bit of red to the background — upper left for one owl, lower right for another. I specifically didn't want the painting to be symmetrical, so I made sure those background color placements weren't mirroring each other exactly.
Connecting Three Owls Without Losing Each One
One of the compositional challenges with a trio of subjects this close together is making them feel like a group without having them blend into an indistinguishable mass. My solution was to let their bodies merge and become a little ambiguous — where does one owl end and the next begin? — while using negative painting to clearly define each owl's head.
That push and pull of lost and found edges is something I really enjoy. Let the body get a little soft and ambiguous. Make the face crisp and clear. The viewer's eye will do the rest.
Timing Your Lifts: The Shine Test
A lot of this painting involved lifting pigment to bring out lighter areas — the face feathers, the beak shapes, a few highlights here and there. Timing a lift correctly is something that takes practice, and here's the rule I use:
After the shine disappears, but before the dullness sets in.
Watercolor dries paler and develops a kind of flat, dull appearance when it's fully dry. That in-between stage — no shine, but not yet dull — is your window. If you try to lift while it's still wet, the surrounding color floods back in and your lift was pointless. Wait too long and the pigment has set and won't budge.
If you do miss the window and accidentally paint something you want to remove, there's still hope: add a little water to dilute the paint, then press and lift with a paper towel. Don't scrub. Just press, lift, let it dry, and try again.
Finishing Details: The Liner Brush and a Little Gouache
Near the end, I switched to a size 2 liner brush for a few thin, precise lines. I'm not a tight painter — I don't want detail everywhere — but a painting does need some definition to feel complete rather than unfinished. Just a thin hard line here, softened out at the end, was enough to give each head more convincing shape.
I also pulled out some gouache, mostly out of curiosity. Honestly, the painting didn't need it — but a tiny touch of white gouache in the eye can add a lively glimmer that watercolor alone can't quite achieve. Sometimes that's all it takes.
What I Love About Painting Small
Mini paintings often get overlooked, but they're genuinely valuable for your practice. They're affordable, low-pressure, quick to complete, and perfect for experimenting with color combinations or compositions you haven't tried before. For this series, working small pushed me to simplify — fewer details, looser marks, more trust in the viewer to fill in the rest.
Would I have loved more space to let the granulation flow and the colors mingle? Absolutely. But that just means there's another, larger owl painting waiting to happen. I'm not complaining.