Owl Drawings by John Pusateri

New Zealand based artist John Pusateri draws hyper-realistic portraits of owls using charcoal, pencil, and pastels with incredible detailing. If you look closely you can see the texture of the feathers as well as the crevices on the beaks. Those captivating big yellow eyes are impressively captured by the artist making the drawings look like real owls. 

"Owls are probably the most powerful birds that I work with for a few reasons. Their forward-facing eyes give them a presence and gaze that is unmistakable and, at times, unnerving. They are almost completely silent while flying and can seem to appear out of nowhere. Culturally, they are often messengers of death or bad luck, and this also adds to their power.

I have learned that owls have asymmetrically-positioned ear canals, one being higher up on the skull, and are able to perceive a prey's location with much more accuracy. I've also learned that birds with camouflage are difficult to draw as the pattern breaks up their form and disrupts how we perceive them. In New Zealand, they've been able to find out when certain invasive mammalian species arrived by dating the hundreds of years worth of owl pellets surrounding historic nesting site." shared with Juxtapoz.

You can find more work by the artist that I blogged previously here.