The Parrot

One of the problems I've had with the parrot is getting a design that was right for this Totem. For a start there are not many North American tribes that have Parrots on their Totem poles. I guess because Parrots are not common in the northern parts of North America. However I found some, including the Hopi.
I intended at first to base my figure on a true parrot, but any examples I found looked very different from the real thing. So, because of the very iconic nature of the Totem Pole I decided to base the design on the icons I could find on actual totems.
The principal model was in Stanley Park, Vancouver.

The strange thing about these bird images is that they usually have legs and thighs more like a ground animal rather than a bird, and I decided to go with this feel.

The basic shape and proportions were roughly cut out, and at this stage I did decide to keep the proportions rather rounder than in my principal model.

The Christmas and New Year got in the way a bit but I've now had enough time to rough out the basic shape and define the legs and face etc.

The top of the head has been particularly difficult to smooth because of the cross-grain cutting of a rather hard tough grained wood.

The eyes and feet will now be defined the eyes etc.

I will be adding 'add-on' wings later.





Approx 12.5 Hours