Oregon Junco Bird Art Painting, Daily Painting No. 10

Okay, I'm moving along at a better pace now.  This is my tenth painting, a painting of a little male Oregon junco, a subspecies of the dark-eyed junco, a species of the American sparrow.  They are prevalent in my home state of Oregon, and over a large part of the Northwest as well.  As I've been trying to do paintings in and about Oregon, I've been researching some of the wildbirds commonly seen here.  This little guy -- and his friends -- plays outside my house in some bare bushes.  They are amazingly tiny and so much fun to watch!

The original painting is available on my website, http://www.dottiedracos.com.  It's an acrylic painting on an 8x10x3/4" canvas, with the sides painted the same color as the background.  It's wired to hang immediately, either with or without a frame.

I have twenty paintings to go in my Daily Painting self-challenge, and I do feel that I'm finally starting to benefit greatly from my challenge.  One of the things I've most learned about is using my palette more wisely.  In the past, I included way too many colors of paint straight out of the tubes instead of mixing my own colors.  With this bird, I had a palette of three colors:  phthalocyanine blue (cyan blue), magenta, Naples yellow, plus white.  So I had a lot of mixing to do, but I feel I am really getting to know the properties of each color I use now.  It's amazing to me how many wonderful colors, including a dark purplish black, that I can create with just these three colors.

Robin Bird in Oregon Forest

This acrylic painting of a robin in the Oregon woods is second in my 30-day personal challenge to become a better painter.    It came together pretty well, and I'm happy with it.  I see a couple of small flaws that I'll probably go back in sometime and fix (as in if someone buys the original!), but for the most part I feel it came out well.  I was able to focus on the important big matters in the painting instead of getting all tied up in tiny, minute details. In other words, I didn't paint every single feather, which has often been my tendency.

Okay, off to paint the third one.  I don't even know what it will be yet; but since several people have submitted photos that I can use in paintings, I better get started on one of those!