The Mysterious Woo, 7 inches by 9.75 inches, pastel on paper. Click image for a larger view.

What I love about painting black is the range of colors of reflections in it. So often they are the iridescent - purple, peacock green or teal and even crimson. It’s fascinating to me since purple and green are opposites on the color wheel and sometimes when I’m looking at the sheen it’s as if I see both of them in the same place at the same time. It’s like squinting at green grass and seeing a reflection of red.

When layering on top of black I always use Nupastel prismacolor hard pastels - pastel pencils will not show as brilliantly, and soft pastels applied on top of each other just make a muddy mess.

You might be interested in this post featuring other paintings of black animals and birds.