Starry Feathers

Description

Watercolour paint and ink drawing A1

This painting/drawing was inspired by Matt Laughton’s photo of a female Red Tailed Black Cockatoo. I’ve been wanting to paint one for a while now and had a lot of fun exploring the reflective blues and purple tones on the black feathers. I included a little red-back spider in the corner of the painting. Just a little nod to the colouring of both with the vivid red against the deep black.

They are one of my favourite birds and it is so rare to see them as they are an endangered species. This one has such an interesting expression and a face full of character. The feathers fluffed up around her head so much her face is almost all mohawk and with the way the pale speckles on the feathers spiral around, it does look a little like a galaxy of stars on her face.

The painting was scanned and then I added more ink drawing in the background on the original and so the limited edition versions will be slightly different. The image showed on my website is the limited edition version