Johannes Stoetter created a lifelike parrot painting a woman's entire body

Mar 14, 2014 16:46 GMT  ·  By

If you think the image above shows a parrot sitting on a tree, look again!

At first glance, the photo is very deceiving, as it makes you think you're seeing a colorful bird perched on a tree stump. In fact, this is a female model whose body has been carefully painted to replicate the tropical bird.

Johannes Stoetter is the artist who made this stunning work of art. The Italian is a former body-painting world champion who has caught worldwide attention for creating amazing optical illusions.

Daily Mail says it took the 35-year-old artist four hours to paint the model's body so that it resembled a parrot. He used special breathable paint and paid a lot of attention to details. He then struggled to find the perfect position and the perfect angle to take the photo.

“It was quite hard to take the photo, to tell the model how to pose to make the parrot seem as real as possible and also to find the right point of view for me to take the photo. It was not easy for the model to hold the position either. The whole process took about four weeks from start to finish,” the artist said.

The result of his work is impressive, you can easily mistake the woman for a real parrot. The woman's left leg became the parrot's tail feathers, her right leg and arm became its wings, while the left arm wrapped around her neck forms the parrot’s head and beak.