I had asked for help from anyone who happens to read my blog because I was stuck with this paiting.  You can read the original post here.  Thankfully two lovely ladies, Ingrid and OStarr gave me some great input and today I was finally able to finish my painting so i thought I would show you all the finished product.  It isn't perfect but since it is only the third piece I have done on canvas I am quite proud of it. 

I added branches (yes, those are branches and yes, I know I need to work on my branches :) to fill in some of the empty space and then painted a very light metallic gold wash over the whole painting to tone down the brightness in the middle and make it a little more cohesive.  I have a cheap, cheap metallic gold craft paint that I just on just about everything I paint it was the best $2 I have ever spent.  I then touched up the bird and the butterfly outlines which I had done in oil pastels. 

Just a note about oil pastels.  I love working with them.  I like to outline certain things in my paintings and add depth with the oil pastels and to me they work so well for that.  I had been told that there isn't really a big difference between cheaper and higher quality oil pastels.  Based on this is was blithly running through life using a $3 box of oil pastels from the dollar store but the other day I was at the art store and they had $60 boxes of Rembrandt oil pastels on sale for $20 so I thought since I like them so much I would give them a try and see if it does make a difference.  All I can say is "WOW" there is definitely a difference between the cheapies and the higher quality and my friends, I will not be going back!

Hope you all have a fantastic weekend, my is about to include a glass of wine on the patio.