Red Tailed Hawks Painting Progression

Video by Justin Tennison

"Cultural District Hawks Over The Amon Carter"   40" x 30"   Oil

Almost Finished

"Cultural District Hawks Above The Amon Carter" (in progress)   40" x 30"   Oil

The foreground hawk is almost finished and then I'll work on the one in the distance.  After that I'll begin refining the landscape and architecture and in my next blog post I'll show you the finished painting.

Watercolor Hawks

"Amon Carter Museum From Hawk's Eye View"   10" x 8"   Watercolor

Before beginning the larger oil I plan to do of this composition, I first wanted to get familiar with the subject by painting this watercolor sketch.

The Cultural District Red Tailed Hawks

A couple of months ago I was in Galerie Kornye West visiting with Paula (the owner) and she was telling me about a pair of red tailed hawks that are often seen flying around the Fort Worth Cultural District.  I had never seen them before - until the very next day - when I happened to be driving by the museums and saw them flying high above.  I got the idea to do a painting from the hawks' perspective, with the Amon Carter Museum below.  These two pencil sketches are my first attempts at visualizing how the painting might look.  I plan to first do a watercolor sketch and then a large oil.

I am indebted to Kelly Cone of Beck Architecture for risking his life for me by climbing up and down both cranes (each at least 100 feet high) to photograph the Amon Carter from "bird's eye view".  Thanks Kelly!  After he climbed down the second crane and we were about to leave, we happened to look up - and to our surprise and amazement - one of the hawks flew right by the crane!