The Queen of Bavaria conure or more commonly known as the golden conure is one of the larger species of conure that originates from the Amazon Basin in Brazil. The look of this beautiful bird lies in it's name, bright golden yellow plumage from tip to tail with the exception of the wing feathers that are a rich dark green.
As a simple parrot enthusiast such as myself, I knew very little about these rare conures. Drawing parrots don't come easy for me as most of my art is inspired by the behaviour of a species and less on their appearances. So when it came time to draw the golden conure, I had to seek the help of someone who owns these gorgeous parrots.
The Inspiration
I reached out to none other than Maddy Stoneman, founder and head consultant of Flighted Feathers, whom was kind enough to provide me with answers to my questions about golden conures as well as videos and photos of Aurora, her very sassy but clown of a golden conure.
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Other than Aurora, Maddy also has three other parrots that she cares for, Maui the catalina macaw, Hades the scarlet macaw and Groot the senegal x Meyer's parrot. All of them are free flight trained. Maddy's company, Flighted Feathers is a company that strives to help parrots reach their fullest potential through expert training and care. They offer online consultations to help owners better their parrots wellbeing as well as free flight courses for parrot owners who want to take flying one step further. If you are considering , check out flightedfeathers.com or if you want to follow Maddy on her adventures with her flock, go give her a subscribe on Instagram. A few other honourable mentions that I have drawn inspiration from are blueplanetpets and NimbleNavigators. |
The Art
My first creation ever on the golden conure was done on a sticker sheet. The sticker sheet was not designed based on a specific species but more towards a wider genus or family of parrots that share the same appearances. In this scenario, these cute designs are for large conures ranging from the patagonian conure to nandays.
"They are total clowns. Full of themselves too. They would be the popular girl at school who doesn’t talk to anyone else." Maddy Stoneman
Amongst a few other descriptions that Maddy has provided me with, she mentioned that golden conures are very clowny and never short of sass. So, I tried to incorporate these personalities into my design. The first was a golden conure screaming into a glass jar. Maddy sent me a video of Aurora doing that and in fact, my first sight of a golden conure was actually one doing the same. At this point, you can't convince me it's not a thing they do as a species. I initially wanted the label of jar to say 'Scream Jar' but later changed my mind and decided to add a sense of humour by making it a bit like a tip jar.
The next design I did was centralised around the word clowny. What better way to shout that than a chaotic position with the golden conure hanging upside down and wings flailing without care in the world. Call them crazy but who cares? They certainly won't bat an eye to your opinion!
Similar to the struggle with drawing human hands and feet, complex and intricate body parts such as spread wings and feet had always been a challenge for me and this design was not short of it. I did end up spending more time than I had anticipated on this due to the many redos I've attempted with shading its wings. But I got there in the end!
The last design was never intended as I was aiming to stop at two designs. But I had a sudden surge of inspiration and I couldn't ignore it! So, a galaxy themed golden conure was born!
This design wasn't much of me getting inspiration from Maddy's descriptions nor from the pictures of golden conures but more so from the thought of trying something out of the ordinary. I though, "There's way too many space cat designs, maybe it's time for a space parrot."
The design didn't quite turn out as galaxy-esc as I had envisioned. But only because the initial imagination of filling the whole background with star signs (and stars) didn't quite work out. So I swapped things around and landed with a moon instead. I guess now it's more luna than space really.
Photos in The Inspiration section by Maddy Stoneman.