SWAN FEATHERS!!! Hand Marbled and I Never Thought It Would Work

I marbled my first swan feather (I only have 8!) and it worked. Shocked the crap out of me! These feathers are 13" long and collected by a friend of my husbands' who has swans on his property. These are so special and I have no idea whether I will ever see any more.

Taking Over the Kitchen STILL!!

What can I say? Here's is a photo of my still tied up kitchen (no, I didn't say the husband is tied up, just the kitchen. Looks the same you say? Well I am almost to the swan feathers~I have a feeling they will be tricky.

Marbled Feathers~Fabulous Hot Colors and Very Bold

I am still marbling. When I create a pleasing color scheme, I keep moving forward. It takes me about an hour to create the "painting" in my tray and sometimes I overwork it and have to pick up the paint with a piece of paper and start over. At that point, my husband goes outside to play in the heatwave, And entertains himself until the coast is clear.

I always try to marble a selection of sizes from the large feathers down to the smaller feathers.
Visit my store, the technique of marbling feathers is exclusive to QuillnAros, all one of a kind!

Series "Some Like it Hot"



Series "Light in the Dark"




Series "With a Ray of Hope"



Series "Earth Tones Keep Me Grounded"

www.QuillnAros.etsy.com/

Marbled Feathers Low Heat Nice Bend

This is interesting.... and it makes using the marbled feathers more flexible! I am showing a picture of a lovely curve which was done on low heat with a curling iron. I found if I started the curve 1/3 up from the bottom of the feather and not at the middle, the feather barbs tend to stay together more easily. The further up on the feather that you start your curve the harder it will be keeping the feather barbs from separating.

African Grey Feathers Preview~Earthy

The small ones are a pain in the butt~much harder than the  larger ones. The above sizes are perfect for feather earrings, along with other feather craft.

Marbled African Grey Parrot Feathers

Absolutely right out of the marbling tray. I spent about one and one half hours just "throwing" paint into the tray to come up with a beautiful color combo for those incredibly subtle gray feathers!

I call these Saturn.

Contributor of those plain gray feathers

But NOT a plain gray personality! The fact that African Grey parrot's personality does not match the color of their feathers was my inspiration for marbling them. So many bird owners make the visual beauty of the bird a top reason to what to adopt or buy~and then learn personality and idiosyncracies later.

I adopted Sylvie from a shelter I used to volunteer at. She had a big sign on her cage "HATES MEN!!!"
(yep that is my husband, a non bird person).

I can pick Sylvie up as long as Wayne is not in the vicinity, but believe me it takes courage....Now what I learned is that when a bird bites you and is hanging off your finger, you are not suppose to say a word or throw the bird across the room because you don't want to reinforce negative behaviour.

When Sylvie drops a feather, I do add it to my pile just to make her feel included~but the African Grey feathers that I marble are purchased from reliable owners whose birds are members of their family. I laid the cockatoo feathers to one side for now and am going to start marbling African Grey feathers.

I marble with metallic and luminescent paints. The feathers are gorgeous and completely different feeling from the cockatoo. This is a pair of earrings I have at www.QuillnAros.etsy.com/ , which will be a unique shopping experience.

Oh, remember the observation I made that Romeo (the Wegler's Conure) is afraid of blue nail polish? Well, I just found out he's afraid of silver nail polish too..........