Blue Throated Macaw- A WIP

[Miro The Macaw]

A couple of people requested that the next drawing be displayed as a Work-In-Progress, Showing the drawing progress through it's stages to completion.

I have started a new one- An 8 x 10 featuring the critically endangered Blue-Throated Macaw- It is my intent to offer the image to one of the parrot charites (Parrots International, for example) to be offered as a print for fundraising, if they are interested.

This was a hard one, because I didnt have a good photo to work from, so I pieced it together from several pictures.

The scans are a little blurry, because the drawing is a little too big to fit on my scanner, so it doesn't rest on the glass.


I didn't think to start out scanning the original line drawing, but this is still pretty early in things. The paper is taped to the right side to protect my line drawing there from being smudged.









It's coming along. The bird is about 90% done, the map/photos only have the first layer of many layers of graphite.

Any Comments welcome! I'll be working on it more tonight, but probably no updates, since I wont have a scanner tonight...

-Andrew

[Irish]

Looks very nice so far! They're not very big birds--like Military size--and the ones I've met have always been naughty little mechanics prone to dismantling things. Kinda like Gracie, really :-). A bird store just over the Washington border has a couple of baby Blue Throats in right now, and are they ever adorable! Spendy ($2.5K--at least one of them is already sold), but really and truly cute.

[homebird]

I really like it so far. Like you say it's in progress so it isn't fair to do a critique.

If it's OK I'll say this
~ I think a little more dramatic contrast from the left to the right side of the bird would be nice. I mean - I see that the bird's left wing is darker, which I like - so carry on with that throughout - even lighten its' right wing a little - sometimes its effective not to have everything in focus. ( do you use a kneeded eraser to pull the carbon away, rather than rub?)

At any rate - I look forward to the works progression.
It is very well done.
I always use a paper mask to protect areas as I work too.

[grandma]

It is beautiful!

[Winged_Victory]

I don't want to be picky but the shape of the head and the beak, something is missing. I wish I had all the pictures we have taken of our Caninde.

[Miro The Macaw]

Thanks, Homebird, Irish, W.V., and Grandma...

The darks are not fully 'developed' in the bird yet- That always comes last, once I get the rest of the drawing done, especially the background.

I don't use a rubber eraser unless I am going all the way to the paper. I use a kneaded eraser, but also a product called 'blu-Tak', which is sold to hang posters on walls, etc. That particular brand name comes from England... But is somewhat like the stuff sold in the US. It actually works a lot better than the stuff that they make for it.

As for the shape of the head- I'll have to look at it again- I had to use a rather bad reference photo from the Parrots international web page-

http://www.parrotsinternational.org/...oat_page_5.htm
It was the closest that I could find to the pose that I was looking for. The pictures of the Candides that I found were a little different looking- The head was 'fuller', a bit rounder...

-Andrew

[The Outlaw]

Andrew:

I have to agree with Gary. He has a caninde (Mango) and here is a photo he took a while back. I hope he doesn't mind me posting it. I know he lost some photos recently with his computer. I can't put my finger on it, but your bird really looks more like a BG (JMHO) and not a caninde. They do resemble each other, but they are definitely different. I hope you are not insulted, for your work is always exceptional.

[Buteo]

Hmmmmmm
It could be the relative lightness of the feathers lines around the eye on a caninde....

nice drawing, Andrew,
nice pic of Mango,

**EDIT NOTE: Don't know where the other part of this post went. It probably got lost when my computer locked up when I hit "post" last night.
It was supposed to have:

As to the look of BT's, I don't think it's the beak so much as the back of the head. IMO BlueThroats seem to have a slightly larger skin patch around the back of the eye than say a BG.
Gives the BT more of a slicked back look to the feathers at the back of the head.

[homebird]

After studying the photos & your drawing - I think the blue throat is the same volume/area/size as the whole beak. The wonderful red burst, that almost 'tears' away from the edge of the white around the eye, is smaller. The area above the eye is very expressive and maybe cruder than your drawing.
Better you than me, in trying to get that likeness. Each individual & pose will give you a slightly different look as well.

Sure are beautiful birds.

PS thanks for the gentle typo correction - kneaded eraser is what I ment - the illustrators friend.

[featherduster]

I have only seen one Blue Throat personally.
Beautiful!
I did find this site that may help capture the blue throat personality.
http://animal-world.com/encyclo/bird...uethroated.php
Your drawing's are fantastic!