The Puerto Rican Tody - Todus Mexicanum !

I've not kept up with the weekly subject on the `Paint Colorful Birds' Facebook page but completed this one yesterday. What a mouthful of a name.

The Puerto Rican Tody 16" x 12" not

This is painted on the back of a failed or discarded painting. I think it the Great Art Centenaire paper but not certain. 

I made an initial drawing using a Pentel mechanical pencil 07 2B. This was done the day previously and painted yesterday. It is quite an easy subject compared to some other birds but interesting in the contrast of green and orange. I recently sorted my paints out and found I had at least ten different tubes of greens (!). When I looked at the bird I thought I would have trouble as I didn't have an emerald green but found a forgotten tube of Maimeri Cobalt Green Light (PG50). Although fairly old the paint was fine and I used it with touches of Hansa Yellow Medium (Daniel Smith PY97). The lower rear area has some Indian Yellow (Rowney PY153). The orange-red is Schminke Translucent Orange (PO71), and the breast some Ultramarine Violet (Rowney PV15) together with touches of Cerulean greyed with Burnt Sienna. The eye is Maimeri Ivory Black. The white areas were brightened with Acrylic white. The branch has Raw Sienna, Indian Yellow, Cerulean and Quinacridone Rust (Graham PO48) and Raw Umber.

I used the Isabey Kolinsky sables series 6228 in mainly size 8 and the size 4 retractable. I like Isabey very much and while I think Escoda make excellent brushes the current spate of `big' name artists telling us Escoda are the `best in the world'  increases my cynicism about listening to such marketing hype.