Much better painting attempt!

Today I was determined to retry the succulent painting.  I did a few things differently.  After setting up my painting area, the first thing I did was push my chair WAYYY back.  I  didn't want to even be tempted to sit.  I have learned from past experience that standing is one of the best ways to work wet-in-wet.  You get better arm movement and you can more easily see how the water is drying and what the painting needs.

The second thing I did was draw out the image.  After that I planned out my paint colours.  I prepared some in my palette and painted onto a scrap piece of paper.  I wrote down the colours I used to make them too.  This way I not only know how to mix them again, I also know how well the colours look on the paper.  And when I need to make more I have something to compare to so I will know how close to the original colour I am.

Then I started painting the first leaf/petal.  I continued working until I got tired, moving from wet leaf/petal to dry leaf/petal, making sure that the next petal I worked on was surrounded by dry petals.  As I moved along I definitely noticed improvement from one petal to the next.  You can see I have an unintentional blossom in the one petal at top-right - another lesson learned.  And there were a few places were the paper was dryer than I thought when I added more colour.

I think there's a definite improvement from my last attempt though.  The colours are richer and there's more dimension in the leaves.  It gets a bit difficult because I don't really know where her light source is, but I found that by slowing down and really thinking about what I want to happen and what needs to be done I had better results.  When I got panicky or rushed things went badly.

I'm going to let it dry for now and maybe work some more on the weekend to finish the leaves/petals, then I will let it dry before I add the shadows with dry brush glazing.  I'm nervous about this because I'm afraid to lift the underlying colour in my attempt to lay on a new layer.  Well...I guess that's what practice is all about :)