"Harris Hawk" oil (work in progress) 11-2008

I thought I'd put up some pictures of the Harris Hawk oil painting I'm trying to find time to work on. I started this a year or so ago! The underpainting shown below, has been sitting around in my studio so patiently waiting for more! It's done with wet burnt umber then I wiped off to 'draw' the bird on the canvas. A very nice, freeing technique, you just concentrate on the shapes like you should.

Then below, I start what's called the dead color stage, flat blocked in areas of color as close to the final color as possible.


Below you can see me, wow do I look serious or what? I decided to hold the palette this time, sometimes I put it on my custom biult (by me) painting tower. But I like having the colors right there in my hand so to speak, for mixing and direct painting onto canvas. This is it so far...shapes are looking good, colors too. I have to decide what I'll do with the sky or background.