Wildlife
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Junglecat
This is a portait of our housecat, Lily. Not exactly wildlife, unless you ask our other cats. My wife grows a lot of houseplants, so much that I say I live in a jungle. Lily likes to hang out in this flowerpot and survey her domain, in this case a corner of the sunroom. Hence the Junglecat title. The plant in the pot is a Monstera deliciosa, and the foreground plants are mainly Caladium and Draceana. The large leaf in the upper right is from a Bird of Paradise, Strelitzia reginae. The autumn background is invention, as the photo was taken on an overcast summer's day.
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Evening Perch
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Floating Swallowtail
The Yellow Swallowtail is one of the most common butterflies in the Eastern half of the US. The individual shown here is a female, as can be told by the blue coloration in the wings. The flash of yellow one sees as the butterfly flits among the flowers is one of the joys of growing a garden
This painting was done in glazes over a grazille underpainting.
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American Kestrel
The kestrel is the smallest and most colorful of the raptors. It is acually the most common falcon in the Americas, but due to it's smaller size often goes unnoticed. Also called the sparrow hawk, it will feed on sparrows and other small birds, as well as small insects, lizards and mammals. It adaps well to a wide variety of habitats, including urban environments.
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The Aerial Knight
This is one of my favorite hawk drawings. The title is a reference to my interest in chess, and I've always enjoyed seeing hawks about. When I draw a hawk, I want it to be more than just documentation of a specimen. It's more like a portrait, as individual and with as much character as a painting of a person. I try to express the intensity in the gaze of the hawk, and if the hawk is shown in flight, I want the viewer to be able to sense the wind in the bird's wings, and the hunger in it's talons. If I can share with the viewer that kind of perception, then I think the drawing is a success, a real work of art. I won third place for this work in a Long Island art show, which surprised me. First and second went to large, gorgeous oils, and deservedly so. Black and white graphics rarely do so well in competitions with colored works.
Private Collection.
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Red Shouldered Hawk
There's a story that goes along with this drawing, a day in the life from the view of the hawk itself. You can read it here.
All these predatory birds have an intensity and conscious awareness that has always fascinated me. This is one of my largest hawk drawings, as I didn't like to make things larger than life size at the time. This hawk has an impatient, hungry look to it. When I begin drawing a hawk, I typically do the eyes first, finishing them to a high degree of detail before I move on to the rest of the picture. This way, if I'm not happy with the way the eye looks, I can start another drawing with less lost effort. And if that critical part turns out well, the rest of the drawing usually follows suit. This drawing turned out very nicely, and I am quite happy with it.
Prints of this drawing are available. If interested, please drop me a note.
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Peregrine Falcon
The Peregrine is my favorite species of hawk. They're natural cliff dwellers, and do quite well in cities with tall buildings and large pigeon populations, like Manhattan. I always looked, but when I lived in New York City I never saw one. I had fun with this drawing, adding some streaks of guano visible beneath the bird. When I framed it, I used a little white and brown paint on the frame to extend the guano beyond the picture plane. Sometimes, this get curious looks from the viewer at first, but it's usually followed by a smile.
Private Collection.
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The Watchful Hawk
This picture is a portrait of a red tailed hawk on it's hunting perch, waiting for lunch to show up. This was my first hawk drawing, done when I was home from work, sick with the flu. I was getting very restless after a few days of inactivity, so when I was finally well enough to sit up and stay focused on something, I looked for a project to do that wasn't too much exertion. In this work, I was experimenting with hot pressed paper, which I found much too slick for this kind of work. It produced a polished finish, but didn't allow for crisp detail. Still, I liked the result, and this work became the ancestor to a whole series of hawk drawings.
Private Collection.
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Broad Winged Hawk
This picture is a striking portrait of a Broad Winged hawk in strict profile, just as he is touching down for a landing on his hunting perch. It was drawn with a lot of sharp detail, as befits the distinctive markings of this magnificent creature. However, when working on the drawing, I treated each small section as an abstract design, concerned mostly with the relationships of the contrasting shades with the patterns that surrounded it. That approach led to a very different working attitude than I normally use.
A print of this drawing is available.
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Soaring Osprey
I got a little playful with this drawing, and turned my signature into the fish the Osprey is about to have for dinner. In the print version of this image, the corners have been faded to white, leaving an oval vignette which follows the top contour of the Osprey's wing. Most people consider this work to be very peaceful and calming.
I still have a few prints of this drawing available. If interested, please drop me a note.
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On The Wing
This drawing used to be titled Ray's Hawk, named after the person I made the drawing for. But too many people would comment that they'd never heard of that kind of a hawk before. So I renamed the drawing to avoid the confusion, since the species is actually a red tailed hawk.
Private Collection.
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Eagle at Altitude
I get a lot of requests for eagle pictures, though I prefer to do other kinds of birds myself. Images of bald eagles are just so common in America, and they evoke a very different emotional reaction than what I normally look for. However, they are marvelous animals, and I didn't want to avoid doing one. I chose about life size for this work. It hangs high up on the wall of my living room, about twelve feet above the floor. You have to crane your neck to look at it, which is as it should be.
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The Joy of Arctic Spring
One of my larger paintings, and the only artwork I've ever airbrushed. Not sure why I never did another one, as I rather enjoyed it. This image, scanned from a film photo, doesn't quite capture the look of the painting, as there were violet highlights in the underside of the clouds that gave a lot of dimension to the sky, and the water dripping off the Orca's back really glistened. Paintings in this media need to be protected from air and dust, but I don't like using Plexiglas as it crazes over time. So I put this piece behind glass. Thin glass of this size is hard to work with, and expensive, so the framing shop gave me a deal on a piece they had in the back. I didn't know it at the time, but it turns out the glass was defective, having irregularities across it's length. By accident, the wavier section of glass went against the water, and when you walked across the room, the waves almost looked like they were in motion. It was a subtle but magical effect.
This was the first painting I sold for a good amount of money. And for the longest time, my son was wouldn't forgive me for selling it. Over the years I came to agree with him. Curiously, twenty years later, I got a call from the woman who bought this piece. She had to move and couldn't keep the painting. She found this website, read about my son's regret above, and we arranged for the picture to be returned to the family. My wife is also glad to have it. A very happy ending to the story.
Needless to say, I can't sell this painting ever again.
Collection of the artist.