Red Backed Hawk

Juvenile Red Backed Hawk, also called the Variable Hawk due to the many variations of plumage it can have. He was just landing in the ref for this. I rather liked the rich colours in this variation, on the ground he was a bit awkward but this shot caught him rather well. Soft Pastels on white 30 X 40 pastelmat.

I find birds difficult but was quite pleased with this one, must practice more.

New pastels

The missus came back from Stanley today and had a present for me, box of 16 daler-rowney soft pastels. Banged out a quick 10 minute sketch of some flames just to try them out on brown ingres paper (not my favourite paper for pastels but worked just fine with these, very nice, fat, soft pastels, I'll see how they compare to the Unisons that are on their way)

The Wind

This is an experiment I wanted to try, representing strong wind in a portrait painting. It's based on a photo of my brothers girlfriend taken while they were visiting the Falklands last year, on a very windy day (50+ knots). Soft pastels on 30X40 beige pastelmat. 

 Rough sketch of the idea in neocolour crayon

Finished pastel painting.

I'm finding it interesting that as my painting develop I'm tending towards a post impressionist style, it's not intentional, just seems to be the way I 'need' to go.