Colin Alice - Toco Toucan's beak

Nombre y apellidos: Colin Alice

País: France

Web:

Redes sociales: https://www.instagram.com/alice.nature.peinture/

Título de la obra: Toco Toucan's beak

Especie o elemento: Toco Toucan

Leyenda: The illustration features a schema on which are the following elements :
1. Upper mandible
a) Ramphoteca (keratin)
b) Hollow space
c) Open cell foam

2. Lower mandible

Categoría: Ilustración Naturalista

Técnicas utilizadas: Graphite pencil and watercolor

Inteligencia artificial: No.

Tamaño: 29,7 x 42 cm

Año de creación: 2025

Descripción:

This illustration shows several views of a Toco Toucan, and some of its skull. It highlits the importance of its beak, and shows differents points of view of what's actually inside it. Every part of the drawing that isn't the living bird is in black and white. The most colorful element is its beak.

The focus point for this illustration is the toucan's beak, which has surprising proprieties : as huge as it may seem, it is in fact a very light structure. Apart from its role as a defense meanism and feeding tool, it has been discovered that it helps the bird regulating its body heat. Such mecanisms have also been seen with other birds, such as calaos. In this image, the beak is the most colorful part, and really stands out beacause of the greyish tones surronding it. We can see the inside of the toucan's bill, which looks massive compared to the actual size of its skull. Yet one can understand the lightness of it by looking at the alveoli next to it, which are the open cells laying under the ramphoteca. The aim of this illustration is to allow the viewer to overview most of the roles and properties of a toucan's bill.

I first looked online for academic articles and images to really understand what that huge beak was for. Then I gathered lots of photographic references, then composed the layout of my page. I made all the grey elements using a graphite pencil, and added the colours with watercolor. I added some finishing touches with color pencils.