This swan was definitely in a more threatening pose fluffing his feathers up to seem larger.

I had lots of trouble getting the correct red for the swans beak as Alizarin Crimson seemed to be not the correct colour and the next closest colour I had was orange.

Mixing colours is definitely not my strong point and I really should practice more and this task.

Once the beak and eyes are successfully painted in the rest of the swan is pretty straightforward, it’s only brown, grey and white.

I’m thinking of teaching some painting classes and I feel the black swan would make a good subject because of the limited pallet and simple brush strokes.

Once all the grey and white feathers have been painted I start adding some browns and this is about the only other colour on the swan.

Last part of the painting is the reflections, and depending on the angle of the sun and the water’s surface they can reflect much darker images or become a perfect mirror.

The trouble with painting on black paper is once you add a background it’s hard to tell if the image is a day or night time scene. I just leave this up to the viewers imagination and interpretation.

Final swan framed up in a nice timber frame with a bronze insert mounted behind none reflective glass.