Detailed Phoenix Portrait With Feather Details Coloring Page

This is a portrait, drawn close enough that the bird's head and shoulders fill almost the entire sheet. The eye is the focal point, large and round with a ringed iris and a clear highlight, set under a heavy feathered brow, and the long hooked beak below is one of the few smooth shapes on the page. Everything else is feathers. They begin as short tight scallops around the face, lengthen into pointed blades sweeping back from the crown, and become long overlapping leaf shapes down the neck and breast, each one drawn separately with a single central vein. There must be four hundred of them. Around the edges of the sheet a light oval frame of flowers, scrolls and small drifting bubbles softens the crop. This is the most demanding page in the collection and easily an hour and a half of work. The way to enjoy it rather than fight it is to pick one color and work in bands, letting each row shift a shade toward the next, which gives the plumage real depth.