I would color it.

the color job is gorgeous. ^_^

I love the way it looks both ways

guys before me stated the truth - white is way purer and elegant, yet coloured looks sexy as well - depends on situation maybe ^^ you're good at both

I like 'em both! Your color choices are great. I think it depends on where the piece is intended to be hung. I like the elegance of the uncolored one and the muted tones of the colored one.

Color is so not my thing... I just kinda got lucky. The colors were way stronger than this, and I didn't like it so I dumped some alcohol (its alcohol based paint) on the whole thing and patted it down. The muted effect was totally accidental, but it looks way better than what it did.

Also, if I'm going to start doing things in color, I need better brushes. The ones I have are all frizzy, even though they're relatively new.

The colours seem to have invert lightness compared to the noncoloured. I.e., the lighter parts of the plain version are turned into darker parts by the colours. That might be because of the alcohol dilution/patting you mention.

In any case, the darkening is probably not what you want, and I think this might be why it looks a little weird. IMHO. I think weak colours would work well if it could be achieved without the high saturation (leading to darker patches) in the areas that should be light.

Just my musings, for what they're worth. Cool bird, anyhow.

I prefer it uncolored. But thats a tectury thing with me.