Put a Yucca or something in the background for contrast/scale.
Little patch of grass, leaves, something up front yes, maybe even a rock.
Ghost, I can´t put a Yucca there, ´cause the scenery is in Bavaria...we don´t have Yuccas here...
A rock seems a good idea. I altered the sky and already put some grass in the front.
If you were trying to make it look like snow, then maybe a few distant pine trees with a touch of snow on them?
A rock in front 
or a snow drift.
The sky looks good, I'd leave it alone.
Snow...
I am afraid it would be too "white". Right now the background color is ivory. Yes, maybe a rock. But not too big. The sky was to blue. I reduced it. I want that the birds come out in color but not the landscape.
Some sage plants would go good with that background sense sage is some what common in western type landscapes.
I put some there now. see pic at end of the post. What is sage?
Is it is prize for a shooting contest?
On the space under the birds, perhaps putting the name of the location, or name of the organization sponsoring the contest.
Looks nice.
Thank you! Yes its the price for a air rifle shooting contest at our gun club. Above you can read "Schützenkönig 2010" which translated 1:1 would mean "riflemanking 2010". But its a little difficult for me to explain this, since my English is not that good. But its all about tradition.
Maybe I put the the target from the new king in there. I mean this little piece of paper with the hole, that should be right in the middle.
my first impression was it is supposed to be snow, if this is the case then do not add any thing else, just bring some very soft washes of light blue through out the ground work, otherwise it looks great
do a image search on "snowy fields" give ya an idea of what it should look like.
Thank you ink! Well, its not snow. But the color is actually ivory. So, yes it might also be considered as a snow scenery.
What species are they?
It looks like you're approaching things the same way I did when I was getting started in art. I concentrated on the subject, and then had trouble with the foreground and background because I added it as an afterthought almost. I did great on the subject matter (as you are too!), but struggled with the habitat. I did better when I learned to compose the subject, foreground, and background so they all tied together. I was stubborn though, and it took me a long time to figure it out, hehe!
They are black grouse ->
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Grouse / you can find them in different places.
Yep, thats the point. I concentrate on the object and then...I am messing up with the back- and forground. I even bought a book from the strange artist Bob Ross
but wasn´t much help.
Ok, thank you all for your advices!
Since the plate has to be finished this evening I am going to stop now before messing it up.
Its not final version, because I have to put the name in of that guy who will win it tonight.
Regards
SF
