Pigeon - Short aperture effect

[Daniel Morris]

I have been working on this painting of a pigeon we are looking after and decided to try to put a photographic short aperture style (blurred background) on a new layer.
Im not that impressed with the results. Does anyone know of a good tutorial or way to get this effect nailed??
Cheers

 

[ibis]

maybe if you try using not only blur but vignette (black or white) effect with it,
you may get some more aperture realism as well as the image will pop out some more.
nice painting though. congratulations.