Crocus II

We had glorious weather this weekend - I was finally able to tackle all the dead brick-a-brack in my garden and yard!  It's been driving me crazy ever since the snow started to melt!  The only downside is that today I am VERY sore.  And also weary in a sore muscle sort of way (does that make sense?).  So because of this I had to push myself into the studio today.

I figured that since I wasn't as "in touch" with painting as I have been, that I should take things slow and follow the steps.

I added some shadows on the right hand petals with a bit of blue (perhaps too much in some spots and not enough in others), finished the bottom-most petal and tested out some dark in the corner.  I also added some more red/pink to the top petal and attempted to darken the veins.  But for some reason I didn't feel that was enough and decided to add a bit more.

I added some shadow to the bottom-most petal and some dark contrast in the centre of the flower.  There's also a bit of work on the left-most petal and some more dark in the other two corners.  I had to force myself to stop at this point.  I could feel the painting getting away from me and there are some definite oopsies already!  

It's nice to work with the dark tones because I can neaten up my edges a bit.  Also it's bringing the flower out a bit which I like.  I'm surprised at how much more I can see needs to be done though.  I had expected this to be a faster process than it is.  It gets tricky when you are trying to only work in one area at a time so you don't have any bleeding of pigment.  I have to wait for everything to dry before I move on, but I can already see that I need to dull down the blue in the one petal, darken another and enhance the veins in at least two petals.  And then I get to work on the pistils!

I really like taking the pictures of the painting in process.  For one, it makes the image smaller so the mistakes don't stand out as much (always nice).  For another, it allows me to take the image away from the studio so I can see it with fresher eyes and better determine what it needs.

I'm already starting to plan out the next project.  I can't decide if I want to take a break from painting and do a pencil portrait or if I want to try out a different watercolour technique.  We'll just have to wait and see!