Red Winged Blackbird

How to portray black is the task at hand in the current Paint & Draw Together challenge. A red winged black bird photo was posted, and except for the bit of color on the wing, the bird is devoid of color. Or is it?

I can't help but see colors in black, much the same as I do with white. While white reflects all colors back to the eye, black absorbs them all. And it's how the light hits the objects, and the shadows, that gives us the colors to interpret. At least, this is my understanding.

The richness in the feathers of this bird show as a deep purple along with spots of a deep purple-blue. The highlights on his head & upper breast are reflecting a lilac color back at me, while his beak & leg are showing a very light blue. There is just the subtle red & off-white on the wing. And I chose to make the eye a deep red-brown, rather than the black it appears in the photo. (Note: I didn't like that red in the eye, looked like Satan bird or something! I changed it & reposted a new photo here on my blog. Paint & Draw has the original look if you want to see the difference.)

The colors I used on the bird is Dioxazine Purple, mixed with a bit of white and a bit of Payne's Gray. Touches of Ultramarine Blue were used, and mixed with white to do the beak & leg. The background is a total mix of greens, some from tubes, some mixed - and scrumbled, scrumbled, scrumbled. I  love to scrumble in an out of focus background. Kills my brush but gives it such a great look.

All in all, a fun painting to do. I love to interpret colors, such a great exercise & challenge.

Acrylic on 9x12 canvas