Work in Progress: Two Plumeria Paintings

Here's what I got so far on the Plumeria painting...

Blushing Plumeria,  

Watercolor on Fabriano Artistico 140# Cold Press Paper , 6"h x 6"w, WIP 3

I've done another layer of Cobalt Blue and Winsor Violet underpainting on all the shadow areas of the flower, and they look a bit too saturated to me, so I might adjust that by glazing over them a light layer of triad grey mix (Permanent Rose, Aurelion Yellow and Cobalt Blue) to dull down the color a bit. Compared to my reference photos, these shadow areas are already looking too dark, which might create some problems later, since the flower has to read as off-white, which should not have shadows of >6-7 values (in a 1-10 scale with 1 as the lightest, and 10 as the darkest). But I am not too thrilled at the overall washed-out look of the flower in the reference photo, and this might just give me an opportunity to spice things up a bit. The problem at this stage is that pink, blue and purple area right now are almost equal in value, saturation and surface area on the flower, which does not emphasize any area as the focal point. I know the center of the flower would be golden-yellow, and the edge should reads a little magenta-rosy. How I could accomplish that needs careful consideration. So I'm putting this one aside for a little bit to give it some thought -- sleep over it, as one may say. 

Plumeria II,  Watercolor on Fabriano Artistico 140# Cold Press Paper , 5"h x 7"w, WIP 1

This is another plumeria painting I'm starting today. I think they are good little projects to practice different color schemes and get familiar with the handling quality of different paper. So far I've learned that Fabriano Artistico 140# Cold Press is a wonderful paper for lifting and corrections -- you can life any color almost back to white! However, this creates some problem for glazing over an area, and the surface is somewhat quick to saturate and congest with pigments, creating a chalky, granulating look. Therefore, I am trying to not glaze over another for too many times (I will reserve that for paintings done on the good old Arches ;-), and painting the purple-blue underpainting and the triad grey layer in one go. This requires doing more paint maneuvering in one wet session of the paper, let's see how it goes... Well, more practice definitely helps!

I am hoping to finish the first plumeria painting tomorrow, and if needed, I will paint it again incorporating everything I've learned painting it the first time -- thinking this way gives me more courage to experiment and not to treat what's already on the paper too preciously. I'd cross my fingers and pray...