I always feel privileged to get to see animals engaging in curiosity and investigation, working to figure out the world around them. This painting is inspired by that inborn curiosity, but in this case, a wild hawk investigates a mystical object he has found in the sky— a brilliant red stone, which seems to be the source of the winds.

Gryphons used to be one of my very favorite creatures to draw, right next to dragons. If you've followed my work for a while, you may have heard me mention artistic inspirations such as Nambroth from when I was growing up as a teenager. I don't do gryphons as much these days, but I still enjoy indulging every now and then.

I kept this one balanced between strictly realism-based color/lighting and something a bit more mystical-- A lot of this painting was essentially a sort of embellished study where I shifted the colors to match the palette already in the background.

This 6” x 8” oil on panel started as another technique study, but stumbled into being something more. An accidental wiping out of the eyes during the sketch phase led to me rethinking what the painting could be. The absence of a thing (in this case the eyes) becomes a meditation on the thing that is missing, on sight as a sense connecting us to the world.

A recent 5” x 7” oil study of a Ferruginous Hawk, to continue work at improving my capability in the medium.