Work in Progress: Dancing Tulip (Almost Finished...)

Actually, it's not quite finished. The background and foliage started as underpainting colors, which needs to stay very thin on soft paper like Fabriano Artistico, so that they don't end up congesting the paper surface. Unfortunately, in the search of right hue and value relationships, I kept on adding more any more pigments, and -- before I recognize there are already lots of pigments on surface. I made a decision to switch to a more direct painting method after discovering this, finishing them section by section, and adjusting the whole painting with slight glazes here and there to pull all the finished sections together. 

Dancing Tulip,  Watercolor on Fabriano Artistico 140# Cold Press Paper , 5"h x 7"w, WIP 3

I discovered a squirrel hair cat's tongue style brush very suitable for wetting and glazing larger areas on soft paper like this one, since the softer hair does not lift color as easily even compare to sable, which otherwise is a huge problem on papers made by Fabriano and Lanaquarelle, where pigments tends to stay more on surface and sink in less, allowing easy correction by lifting but makes last minute adjustments by glazing over larger painted areas very scary. Also, squirrel hair carries large amounts of water and deposit them on paper not all together like synthetic hair brushes would do, The Sharp tip of a cat's tongue brush can get into tight corners, while the larger body like a flat brush would arrow them to carry even more water comparing to round brushes made by the same hair.