Mmmmmm - tasty.
I would have commented earlier, but really I think you are finding your own way with this one. The turn from light to dark on the forewing is a special piece of work and I think the pose is beautifully captured. I suspect the success of the painting will hinge on the rendering of the rocks and just how you place the background. As for the bird - it's another cracker.
And - I wouldn't get too hung up on your lack of formal training. I had an 'artschool education' - learning lifedrawing, print, 3-d etc and went on to Uni to study illustration - BUT - what I was actually TAUGHT there I could write on the back of a postage stamp. I, like most of the rest of us I suspect, consider myself to be self-taught (mainly cos my tutors hadn't a clue about any genre outside of their own comfy specialisms (and one was Tony Ross - the children's book illustrator. Google him and you'll see what I mean!!!) In fact, I spent 2 weeks in Scotland just to try and get close to birds to draw them, fairly unsuccessfully as it turned out. My tutors' advice on my return was to stop buggering about trying to draw birds from life and learn how to take good photographs of them - I could then copy those!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Needless to say I didn't see eye to eye with them.
