The finished picture; feet and bills all complete and a little extra dark shadows added to areas of the underparts. Title: 'In to Land'.

All of the black upperparts have now been painted in. I worked the paint 'wet-in-wet' with the sky to blur the wing tips slightly to give a sense of movement in the wings. I've also started painting in the eyes and beaks - the puffins are finally starting to really look like puffins!  

I've started painting the black upperparts. Even black areas will shine in pale lavendars and silver in strong sunlight so the very tops of the wings, back and head will be almost white. 

The first wing is complete (again; some attention to detail may be required before the painting is finished). I've painted one wing of the rear bird and have started on the other. I've also painted pure white on parts of the feet. I noticed in the field how the webbed feet glowed in brilliant orange as the sunlight shone through them. In order to achieve this brilliance of colour I will put a translucent glaze of orange over the white paint when it is dry - this will give a far more vibrant effect than using opaque paint which would have to be lightened with white to get the right tone.

I've started painting in the underwings. Again I'm testing out colours on a small area first; trying to capture the effect of sunlight shining through the flight feathers. Where feathers overlap the sunlight can't penetrate and a pattern of butterknife-shaped shadows is produced along the trailing edge of the wing.

I've finished painting in the underparts, although some bits will need a little attention at the end.  

With a few more of the puffins' white parts painted in I get a better idea of whether the tone and colours of these areas is right.

I've started painting in the white underparts; trying out colours on a small area until I'm happy with them. The tricky thing here is to pitch the tone so that it's dark enough (areas that are in shadow should be darker than the sky) but not so dark that all sense of brilliant sunlight is lost. Peachy, yellowish light is reflected on to the undersides of the birds from the grassy/rocky ledge that the birds are about to land on (out of the picture) - this was a difficult colour to mix because to get it dark enough risked making the colour look muddy. I hope I've got it right; it's just a question of painting it in and hoping for the best!

I've finished painting in the sky - this gives a better idea of how I hope the picture will look in the end.