Work in Progress: A Blush of Spring and Summer Wakening

Still in my tulip mode and started a new one. My goal here is to create a light and colorful abstract pattern here behind the tulip, embedded in the overall dark background, hinting the shimmering light through foliage. At this stage the background seems way too "colorful", and I'm trying to control the urge to dull it down too much -- most of the background areas will be very dark upon completion, with hints of colors showing through here and there. You can always dull and darken a passage in watercolor, but it's hard to do the reverse... 

A Blush of Spring,  Watercolor on Arches 140# Rough Paper , 7"h x 5"w, WIP 1

I also did a first pass of base color on some of the pedals, just to remind myself that I want an overall dark blue-green background to contrast with the warm peachy-pink colors in the tulip.

I also did some more work on the rose painting, "Summer Wakening", mostly trying to finish the  underpainting of the blue-green foliage pattern. I'm trying to use a limited palette of Aureolin Yellow, Cobalt Blue, Viridian Green and Permanent Rose here, just to see how much different hues, temperatures and values I can get by mixing these transparent colors. The Cobalt and Viridian also generated interesting granulation effect on paper -- it's a shame that most of them would be covered in the overpainting process...

Summer Wakening,  

Watercolor on Lanaquarelle 140# Cold Press Press Paper , 10"h x 8"w, WIP 3