Guillemots and razorbills

Disturbed by student frivolity during the night, I'd opted for the quieter couch option under a blanket. And yet, I still wanted to paint. And I'd put a grounding in this time!I took some time, 5 mins or so, to look at the photograph. What colours would I need for the base - mixing white, ultramarine blue, raw umber and ceruleanum blue. 30 minutes in, I stood back to look at it. My eleven year old self would be proud of it! But it didn't look like what I wanted to paint, cliffs and gullies and ledges. Out came the palette knife, a wider brush straking across the paper in different directions, a hint of yellow mixed with titanium white on the guam. I looked at an old swatch exercise, where I'd mixed blue and brown to make black, adding white for varying hues. Going back to mixing on the palette, I was pleased to see the cliffs darken and gain edges.

Close up, it doesn't look so good still. But stand back and particularly on the photograph, it looks amazing. I had painted a cliff scene, lively and noisy with birds. Can anyone spot the puffin? Is it the blue? The birds..? It somehow has a cheery feel to me.