Snowy Owl

I don't really know what kind of owl this is but I dubbed him a snowy owl because I put him into a blustery winter scene. This was an experiment done on Fabriano 90# w/c paper. Do you sometimes wonder "what would happen if I did this?" while working on a piece? With watercolor that can be an especially fatal endeavor, fatal at least to your painting. A few months ago I purchased a tablet of 90# paper just so I could play 'what if ' and not feel I had wasted my more pricey paper if things failed.

I don't normally finish a painting in one sitting but as I was planning to try something untried I didn't spend much time with detail. The majority of the owl is watercolor, the highlights on the feathers and the gathering snow on the branch, etc. added with white Liquitex heavy body acrylic. After everything was dry I swept a large brush across the scene with white gouache and splattered on some white acrylic snow using an old toothbrush. I had the fore thought to snap a photo before adding my 'snow' so I could show the before and after. Also I cropped the second image differently to alter the format. I think the final needs more snow splatter, IMO. Or... OMG, you ruined a perfectly nice painting of an owl. Thoughts anyone?

Note: Reference photo for the owl courtesy of Steve Haas

Note 2: Steve has informed me that this owl is also a screech owl in what is called the gray phase. Apparently some screech owls are red, some gray but all the same species.