 Black Gold - Creating a pastel portrayal of the yellow tailed black cockatoo
by Leigh Rust
As a wildlife artist I'm always on the lookout for local wildlife. Every walk with my kids becomes a mission to get new reference material. Sometimes things don't go quite the way you planned though...
On one of my walks with the kids we came across a flock of Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoos. They were sitting in a tree quite comfortably, less than ametre from us when I discovered the battery in my camera had gone dead. That was two years ago. Between now and then experiences like that one have been few and far between. The rare occasions when I did get an opportunity they were too far away or moved before I could reach them.
Earlier this year I finally got my chance to capture them once again. This time it was by chance that I saw them glide lazily across the sky and tracked them to the point where they landed. With the late afternoon light streaming in I knew I'd found my next piece.
 To do justice to these magnificent birds I chose a full sheet of colourfix paper to portray it on. I'd decided that I wanted to put the bird in it's environment and knew the challenges that lay ahead. I would have to build every leaf and branch around the Cockatoo to create the sense of realism I was looking for.
Taking a sheet of soft umber paper I then . Then I took a large bristle brush and some dark toned ink and proceeded to block in the forms and suggest some of the branched I would need to tackle. I usually work on darker toned papers but to hold the light in the background for this I chose a lighter toned paper. By bringing the inkwash into play I could keep the dark base where I wanted it and work the lights in without the need to overdo it.
 Then I started work on the background. Keeping with a reasonably limited palette of about 8 sticks I started to build the layers of the leaves and work in the light of the sky. Having all the prep done with inkwash meant I could concentrate on setting the scene without worrying about the cockatoo in the early stages.
As you can see here I was working very lightly, tapping the pastel on the surface to optically blend the colours into one another.
 Here you can see the build up of the foliage. More time was spent setting the scene for this than working on the cockatoo. I had to pay a lot of attention to the curl of each leaf and the bounce of the light against their surfaces.
 Now we finally get to do some work on the Cockatoo!
I used very gentle stroke work over the inkwash to let the base tone breathe and suggest details for me.
Letting the paper do the work was something I learned from constant demonstrating.
The impact of suggested detail versus actual detail was quite surprising. Rather than labouring over small details I found that I could suggest so much more by using less pastel. All the work here is done with stick by the way.
 Time to get the head done. Using another limited palette I began working the subtle colours into the feathers. Then I did some more work on the eye and built the beak.
At this stage I noticed that the foliage was a bit soft tonally so I began to make adjustments.
 Now we're getting somewhere! I continued to work down the body, using combinations of prussian blue, some caput mortuum, lemon yellow and lamp black to build the feathers. I really want to capture the glow of the light against the golden marking on it's head.
 I've continued to work through the body with those colours. In the lower regions you can see how lightly I'm applying the pastel.
 The end is in sight now. Leaves, leaves, leaves and more leaves. At this stage I've spent a lot more time observing the work than doing it. This is an important step for me as it helps me to take the piece in an examine each small change so I can see how it will affect the areas around it.
Here is the finished work. The final session was a very energetic one, full of movement and emotion as I laying in the final details for my piece. By the time I'd put my signature on it I knew I'd captured something special and that the wait had been worth it.
Leigh is a Victorian based artist who works in pastel, oil and watercolour across a wide range of subjects. He teaches weekly at Mentone Art Group (Oils), his Pakenham studio, Hampton Park, Drouin and Mount Martha.
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