“In this painting, I wanted to convey a plummeting, unstable feeling. I deliberately made one of the peregrine's wings almost touch the frame so that the line of the frame adds force to the hawk's dive. The misty trees and little cloud at the bottom also hold things in without destroying the dynamic momentum of the painting.
“Snow can be used in paintings to reveal shape and structure, whether on the back of an elk or in the declivities and clearings of a mountainside. In Peregrine Falcon & White-throated Swifts, the picture is structured to have thrust and force and motion and the snow fields are created to add that thrust.”