The Red-Tailed Hawk Becoming

The contemporary writer David Jarecki, whom I’ve had the good fortune to befriend, recently stated in an email, “…enough with the photography for a while, for damn sakes!  Get back to the painting, where the real action’s at!”  Or something like this. 

Anyhow, late Sunday night I went to the garage/studio and dug out a painting I’ve been meaning to finish for almost 2 years, and in a single sitting I finished it.  I never had to original proportions of the hawk correct; I was minutes from taking a sander to the piece and starting over with a clean slate when I picked up a brush and decided I would extend the left-side wing to correct the proportion and see how that looked.  And the heavens opened up, I got it correct, and thought, “How am I going to match the original oil paint colors?  I don’t remember what I used.”  I was terrified; then I realized that any decent viewer would be able to paint the rest him or herself; so I present a piece that is ”challenging as it stands but ultimately finished.”  Consider the title when viewing.