I'd never really just painted a picture in photoshop before, but it was so much fun!! <3 Im really glad I finally tried it, and im sure i'll do more. I just wish i hadnt used such a small friggin canvas for this pic >.<

As for the subject matter, whenever i started taking my first art classes in seventh grade our first assignment was to close our eyes and listen to a story that ended at a creek with beautiful multicolored birds at the end. The assignment was to draw the birds how we imagined them.

I was going through my old art folders and found that picture of the rainbow birds. Im still pretty fond of it, for nostalgic reasons, and I decided to do another picture with them just to show how much i'd improved.

If youre interested, heres the original from seventh grade :]
[link]

i guess i imagine these birds as having really thick, colorful oils in their feathers that they have to wash out daily to keep them light enough for flight. These oils run off into the water and dye the banks all sorts of colors for miles downstream, especially because the plumage of the birds are the three primary colors- the base for all other colors in the spectrum. Thats why they're called paintbrush cranes C: