Red-tailed Hawk Painting in Earth Pigments

madison@wildozark.com or @wildozark on Twitter
- Original painting
- Prints
- NFT listing (make offer to new owner or buy if listed)

This red-tailed hawk is the subject of my painting in progress.

Follow along as I paint a picture of this red-tailed hawk. It’s part of my Ozark Birds of Prey series. It’s the first of two planned red-tails. Red-tailed hawks are very common in the Ozarks and across the United States. They’re the largest of the hawks found in Arkansas. And they’re commonly used in falconry because they’re good hunters that can take down larger prey.

As always, I’m using wild foraged, handcrafted watercolor paints made from my Ozark pigments – otherwise known as Wild Ozark Paleo Paints. The colors I’m using include:

The Red-Tailed Palette

creek shale
bone black
willow char
gray-green siltstone
earthy delight (brown, from a black sandstone)
Cromwell’s Sunrise (from an yellow-orange sandstone)
Pink Tequila (a blend from Cromwell and Pink sandstone)
Russet lights
Yellow Sands
Intoxicating (red sandstone with black coating)

But for this one I wanted to do something a little different. It’s the first of my works to have true background and foreground elements. This will hopefully add an element of depth not previously present in my art.

First Step- the Outline

I don’t use pencil to draw my outlines, I use one of the colors of my paints and a paint brush. My work is all free-hand. Sometimes I do make ruled lines on the photograph to make sure I have everything in perspective the way it needs to be, but this time I didn’t do that. I might pay for that later.

But the outlines aren’t set in stone… unless I accidentally use a pigment that stains. If it does, then the outline is pretty much set in paper, if not stone. The color I chose for the red-tail outline (Cromwell’s Sunrise) did stain, so it’s pretty much set now. Thankfully, the placement is about right and I think I can make any necessary adjustments going forward without much issue.

The Background

Although I knew I wanted a background and foreground in this one, I didn’t know *what* I wanted. The photo originally just had a solid sky background (I lightened the sky to isolate the bird in the photo at the beginning of this post).

So I just started with the gray, because I did know I wanted clouds eventually. Painting a background around the outlined red-tailed was difficult. It just seemed to get in the way. By the time I quit the sky and moved to the ground, I had the groundwork for the clouds in place.

Just adding some color to get started on the background. — Put some gray down.

Clouds are a little more defined. — Put some gray down.

Foreground

With the immediate background in place, the foreground looked empty. So I added a few weeds. At this point it was dark outside and I really wished I could go look at some of the dried grasses. Then I remembered I have dried grasses in my studio! I use them for … whatever. I hadn’t found much use for them yet, but I cut them last year because I thought they’d be handy for something decorative eventually. Ha. Now I’m glad I had them.

A handy grass to use as a model for an element in my red-tail painting. — A handy dried grass 🙂

Foreground grasses — A handy dried grass 🙂

Original is For Sale, Prints too

“Destination Unknown”, in Ozark earth pigments is for sale. Media is handmade watercolors using real earth pigments on Fabriano 300# (hot press) and measures 16″ x 20″, unframed. It ships unframed unless buyer pays additional shipping costs, and in that case the frame is included free. The Red-tailed hawk is one of the birds in my ongoing Ozark Birds of Prey project.

https://shop.wildozark.com/product/destination-unknown/

Thanks for reading, and come back again! I’m not sure what the next one will be, but rest assured, there will be another raptor on the easel soon 🙂

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Author/Artist Info
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Madison Woods is a self-taught artist who moved to the Ozarks from south Louisiana in 2005. In 2018 she began experimenting with watercolor painting, using her local pigments. She calls them Paleo Paints. In 2023 she began her journey into the world of oil painting with those same pigments. Her paintings of the Ozark-inspired scenes feature exclusively the lightfast pigments foraged from Madison county, Arkansas. Her inspiration is nature – the beauty, and the inherent cycle of life and death, destruction and regeneration. Wild Ozark is also the only licensed ginseng nursery in Arkansas. Here’s the link for more information on the nursery end of life out here.

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First and foremost, apart from being an artist and author, Madison is a nature enthusiast. She enjoys using local resources in every aspect of her life and considers the land she and her husband live on as partners in life. They care for the land and the land cares for them. She’s an herbalist, gardener, and wildcrafter of medicinal plants.

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