Red Tailed Hawk Portrait

I finally started a new painting today. I bought some small 16"x20" canvases a while back and have been staring at them trying to decide what to put on them. Enough of that! Let's just paint. This portrait is from a photo I took a while back and I really admire the look of the Red Tailed Hawk. I'll follow the painting step by step like usual as I go along. I'm starting with acrylics but may switch over to oils at some point. I'm not quite sure yet.

Anyway, here is today's work.

This is the sketch I did last night with a Stabilo pencil on the canvas.

Then I started laying on color with a 1" brush keeping it pretty wet.

This is how it looks right now. The white of the chest will probably be my biggest challenge. I layered on some white then over painted with Burnt Umber. I like the idea of oils to blend the background smoother but I kind of want to do more of a blocky brush stroke on this one. 

So we'll see how it goes.  

All my work is available as Fine Art Prints on my website, if you have some free time check it out.