$7,500.00
Frances’s Inspiration: “I’ve had many requests to paint these incredibly popular birds. It was only by sheer luck that I saw a female bird alight on a gum tree about 30 metres away! The resulting photos were a little grainy, but with careful research I managed to fill in the missing details. Wishing to depict both a male and female, one of the photos was altered to create a male. That brilliant red head deserves to be the focal point!
The most difficult technical challenge was to airbrush the sky an even shade of blue with a very slight gradation in tone.
Titled “Fidelity” because Gang-gang Cockatoos are monogamous and form strong pair bonds, although, interestingly, due to the male’s sometimes aggressive nature during breeding, “divorces” have been observed.
Listed as endangered in NSW and with a distinctive call very like a rusty gate, Gang-Gang Cockatoos are the only species placed in the genus Callocephalon which comes from the Greek meaning “beautiful head”. In 1997, the ACT Legislative Assembly passed a resolution adopting the Gang-Gang Cockatoo as the faunal emblem for the Territory.
Living in the ACT myself, this painting is indeed overdue.”.
Original artwork by Frances McMahon.
Click image to view FULL SIZE PAINTING
In stock
