#663 Deception Pass Eagle (Bald Eagle) (12 x 16)

Image size 10 x 14,” trim size 12 x 16″   A Bald Eagle at Fidalgo head in Washington State’s Deception Pass State Park. People familiar with the product line may recognize that this is the same painting in which an Osprey was featured.  You can’t expect a bird to stay on a branch for 12 years if you keep painting for that long on the same painting. Ospreys and Bald Eagles may contest the airspace around Deception Pass, with this being an area where you might expect a lot of dominance of the larger bird. I once painted a painting of an Eagle and an Osprey in midair battle over a fish high above Cornet Bay, which is just around the point from this painting. I never finished that, it was hard to find enough photographic ref to figure out just what that might look like close up and that was before digital was helping photographers to routinely get amazing shots.

I like the Osprey version of this painting and of course I adore Ospreys. But the painting’s composition may have been strengthened by moving to an Eagle. Because the bird is not following the rule-of-nines in terms of where it is in the painting, it might need to be bigger and bolder and a little closer, which it is in this version. There will be no more changes in this image, however, except for very minor ones that won’t be easily apparent that I might do on the computer.