Golden Hawk - Colored Pencil Drawing

"Golden Hawk" Colored Pencil

Perched on a high throne decorated with a wreath of autumn leaves, a golden hawk gazes over a vast empire. The royal color scheme of blue and gold is applied in patches of similar value, resulting in a posterized portrait.

Highlights and shadows are downplayed as the abstract contours exaggerate the drawing’s obvious two-dimensionality. The resplendent creature is static and solid suggesting a timeless permanence that symbolizes confidence, power and freedom.

This piece does not portray a specific individual but it is more of a generic representation of a dazzling species that is so often overlooked. The monarch’s feathers are barely insinuated and the tail stripes are reduced to a simple pattern.

The long, dark wing is devoid of detail, the ochre bib promotes a sand-colored chest and the yellow feet, equipped with sharp talons, melt into the mosaic of foliage. Cut out of a powder-blue sky, the noble profile of a bronze head is adorned with a curved, violet beak.

This memorable recollection of a frozen moment from the past has been transcribed onto a single sheet of white paper. The animal’s dignified spirit expressed by a compact arrangement of interlocking shapes and multi-layered pigment.

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