I went back and kept looking at the Pine Warbler painting, it looked okay… but to my eye, something was not quite right. I took photos anyway. I posted a photo on line and then it just JUMPED out at me. That purple area to the left of the bird was just way too jarring. The edges within that shape were wrong. It was screwing up the composition because the values were off.

So, yesterday I got my paint palate out of the freezer. (I need to do a post about the new paint saver palate I’m using and will do that soon. Love this thing… and also talk about my new Rosemary brushes. Loving those, too. ) But I digress.

Low and behold, I had saved a little sample of my background colors. As I work through the series of birds I’m trying to use a little bit of color from the previous ones… working in sets of four, to create a harmonious collection should someone wish to put them all together somewhere in their home. So I had a little smudge of those purples left over. So I went back and made a couple of adjustments.

Photo 1 is the before picture. Photo 2 after the adjustments.

Did I help or hurt it? By the way, I was going for sort of a circular composition.