The palette of a chaffinch

 In amongst the various commitments here and there we snaffled Friday afternoon for some arty play. I sat down to see if I could capture the spirit of a chaffinch.

I love these little birds, and nearly always stop as they hop around the window feeding on the seed we scatter. I love their colours and I just think they are so beautiful.

I have discovered that they are perhaps commonplace - they seem to exist across the UK in quite large numbers - but each sighting is still special to me.

So I set about playing with a stylised version of this wee bird. How could I get the individuality and the sense of the chaffinch across, in a small drawing? Drawing realistically is not my strength, and so I set about trying to abstract it in a way.

And then I tried to work out where the different colours might play.

And then I tried to workout my colour palette and how to make it, mix it.

And here is my plate of colour. It is a marvel to me how well nature produces and combines colours in such perfect way - these colour do go together so well.

Across the three - the swatches, the plate and the painting.

And where I go to with this wee one. I will go in again and put some softening washes over the top I think; but I was happy with the patches I drew for the different colours, and the colours themselves are pretty close to where I wanted to be.

And back to other moments of nature and perfect colours... the stormy sky on Saturday morning.

And some lovely news through the week - Hame has been extended by another week! So the show is now on until next Saturday 5 October, and I am thrilled that more folk will get to see it.

I spent some time hand-editing the postcards that are out and about promoting it.