A friend of a friend asked me to paint something for his son's wall. He wanted something colourful from nature that his seven-year-old boy wouldn't grow out of. As the father is from Brazil, I suggested some tropical Amazonian icons and showed him a few possibilities.
He chose the blue macaw in flight because it wouldn't look strange in isolation - many other plants and animals would need to be a part of a scene or there would at least need to be an implied ground level somewhere.
This photo is of the work in progress that I took as I was waiting for the paint to dry; the client says he will take a photo of the finished product to send me soon (my battery died)! Since then, I have added some orange shadows to the yellow of its wing and belly, and some light blue highlights to the blue parts of the back wing and top of the tail.
The painting took me about 6 hours, with a few half-hour breaks as I needed to wait for the base coats to dry before adding details. I charged £80.
When my client's son saw the parrot, he squealed with excitement and after a while pretended that we were in a jungle. It was so rewarding for me to see the twinkling in his eyes. Hopefully this macaw will help to keep this young Londoner in touch with his heritage!
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