The Scream

In the recent past, I've documented our frustration with Rocky's incessant screaming when his hormones were going crazy. Luckily, that phase seems to have passed us by and he's back to normal amounts of screaming, which we can handle.

However, when we were in the middle of scream season, it was driving me crazy! In an attempt to channel this into something positive, I contacted my friend Mary, who is an amazing artist and person. She's done portraits of all of my parrots and lizards, and had done a funny picture for me in the past (I still need to get some of these up on my blog!) I summarized my idea to her, and she was game.

As with every painting Mary's done for me, the end product turned out even better than I had imagined! Her creativity and talent just amaze me. I envisioned Edvard Munch's "The Scream" but with Rocky as the central figure. It seemed perfect because I'm sure it can't be pleasant for him to have to deal with the hormonal impulses stirring inside him, just as it wasn't pleasant for us to have to listen to all of the screaming.

Here was Rocky's first look at the painting:
Later, he happened to look at me at the same angle as the picture:
I am just so pleased with the way this turned out! I'm trying to think of other funny paintings Mary can do for me with other parrots playing the central figures, but inspiration has not yet hit me.