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ursulav β Preening Macaws
Published: 2003-06-28 05:03:26 +0000 UTC; Views: 8526; Favourites: 339; Downloads: 1647
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Description
I have always been a little afraid of painting feathers. There's so many. And they're scary. I mean, they're all...layered...and stuff. This is foreign to your average painting mammal.And then I took all these photos of preening macaws at the zoo, and something about their utterly stoned expressions and ruffled feathers appealed to me greatly. I wanted to paint those birds, who looked like brightly colored feather-dusters and had the hauteur of supermodels. I mean, they knew they were beautiful, and I, drab, flesh-colored average painting mammal, was just not up to their standards. And they let you know that. There is no doubt in your mind that the macaw knows it's prettier than you.
And now, many evenings later, painting feathers no longer holds much terror. Also, I can't feel my wrists. But that's okay. Every now and then I gotta do one of these just to prove I can.
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Comments: 77
These birds of yours have always been on my favourites even before I got to finding them here at Deviantart.
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you've truly captured the movement of macaws, including the psyche and social behaviors. great work
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Oh my, these are... beautiful! Amazing! (I need to find a better word. XD; ) I love macaws, they're always so colourful.
I've always wanted to try drawing birds with their feathers ruffled, or preening, but I always think I'll mess up or something.
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Beautiful, graceful scarlets and you have painted the oh so beautifully! Very detailed, realistic work on the feathers, wonderful job! The poses of the birds are great too, they seem very lively.
-the Ansu
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Macaws 
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I am blown away by the beauty of this painting!
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AMAZING WORK, REALLY, IΒ΄M IMPRESS, CONGRATULATIONS. A HELLO FROM MΓXICO
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gorgeous! i love birds. they are very vain.
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oo! You def. did an awesome job with your first time painting macaw feathers! I live to draw birds, and I have three of my own, so feathers are like... part of my life...
?
But anyway, birds are def. wonderful subjects. There's so much color to experiment with. You should def. do more birdies
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Hell, that looked like a photo when I saw the thumbnail. It looks really great!
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Feathers aren't easy to draw (I've attempted and failed), and the feathers on these birds look fantastic! I really like this artwork. It looks as if the parrots are going to move at any second while they preen. Awesome!
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perdyyyy!
and the feather job is wonderful--realistic in all respects--a finale worthy of long gone wrists.
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Holy cow I thought this was a PHOTO when I first saw it!! 
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thats beautiful! , it looks so real, like an actual photo instead of a painting. colors and the detail in the feathers are so amazing. i love the painting
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... and another Fear falls to Chu's awesome fighting powers ...
These are lovely -- both this painting, and the birds themselves.
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Amazing. Spectacular.
All of your things are, but I think you know it already.
Just wanted to show my respect. Wow.
You're very, very talented.
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Wow, this is Great! Love those feather details!
another 
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Wow. WOW! That's absolutely gorgeous!! What medium did you use??
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Absolutely incredible. I`ve seen self-styled parrot-artists who can`t hold a candle to this. You must have spent a long time watching them when you took those pictures, because the personalities of the birds and tone of the picture is perfect.
How much begging do we have to do to get you to take a break from frogs for just one more bird...? Please?
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An incredibly beautiful painting. I wonder if you make prints for this one...
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Sure do! I've got 8.5 x 11 on archival matte heavyweight prints--just drop me a line if you're interested!
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Okay, sure! That sounds wonderful. I'll send you an e-mail sometime 
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hard to believe it is a paint.. it's just plain beautiful!
exotic birds are my favorite animal.. I'll
each feathers are looking good! single of them.. be proud!
those are yummy-looking big birdies..
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dang, you painted this?! from the thumbnail, i couldn't tell if it was a photograph.. your artwork is incredible
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This is GORGEOUS... macaws are such pretty birds. :3 +fav
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I love this- there is so much to love about it! the colors- the masterful painting of the feathers, the lovely composition and use of negative space- this is totally awesome!
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Love this. I used to work at a pet store, and you got the personalities down pat, as well as the textures.
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you drew that so good wow youare the best drawer i know
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wow... this is a painting?!? I thought it was a photo from the thumbnail... I guess that means yer good!
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Holy crap is right! This impresses me to no end.
I happen to know a blue and gold macaw, and yes, she has many people wrapped around her...talon. She is a very lovable queen brat.
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I LOVE Macaws!!!
For reals I thought this pic was real the first time I saw it, I'm breathless.
*faves*
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beautiful. i can't believe this is painted. i held out my fingers to touch them, but this 'screen' was in the way ¬¬;
anywho, well done! ^_^ yeah, i'm working on feathers too. what other fears are you going to trample over?
-- envy.
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Wow, that is -amazing-!! I love it. ^^ I thought this was a photo, as well.
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Very very very very very good job, the color composition everything is great, preemo work! *thumbs Up*
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Holy [insert non-crude word here]! Either i'm on crack or i've just ascended to the heavenly gallery of art-ness(or it could be the paxil kicking in)
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yup feathers are hard to do (i know too) but hell if u had done a very very good job on this subjets
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I simply adore the posing, colours and textures in this painting. I think Klawzie is right about some of the feathers looking more like fur, but that can't stop me from loving this picture.
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Wow! This is beautiful! And it looks so real! GREAT work!!! X3
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Wow... I thought that this was actually a photo! Very well done; you have mastered the art of the feather, my friend.
(I have a few photos of birds under my submissions; if you wish, you can use them as reference in future works.)
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