Summer Wakening (So Close to the Finishing Line...), and the Beginning of Petal Light III

I was reading Kara's blog post and she mentioned that some paintings just come easier than others (and she got a beautiful painting of earthenware to prove it). Well... This painting is just the contrary - every step has been a struggle. I was trying new techniques learned in the fabulous Jeannie Vodden's class, and tested multi-colored glazing on the flower. It is so against my nature to build thing layers of color gradually to full strength that time and time again I had to control my urge to just go right in with a thick brush load of Vermilion Red and achieve full intensity in one go! I am also using limited palette, which is so against my nature (I have 57 pigments on my palattes, really, I just counted... =___=b....). But in the end, I did like the more delicate, jewel-like glow created my multiple glazes. The color looks... richer, and with subtle variations. The limited palette created a more harmonious feel of the color scheme (I was going for a rough complementary of red vs. green). And finally, I did get a chance to play with rich, saturated colors in the wet-in-wet background! That feels like candy...

Summer Wakening, 

Watercolor on Lanaquarelle 140# Cold Press Press Paper , 10"h x 8"w, WIP 7

For the next project I chose to exercise with completely different technique -- paint from shape to shape and each shape to its completion before to move to the adjacent shapes. It's a technique I think suitable for Fabriano paper, on which glazing is hard but lifting is easy -- hence I could soften edges of adjacent painted areas relatively easily, without having to worry too much about the hard rims of color formed between two areas painted next to each other, both wet-on-dry. (Or so I hope... We shall see :-P.) It's another bird of paradise painting, No. 3 in the "Petal Light" series. (I know, I know, I have not finished either No. 1 or No.2 of this serie; but... On my defense: starting a new painting is always fun!)

Petal Light III, 

Watercolor on Fabriano Artistico140# Cold Press Press Paper , 10"h x 14"w, WIP 1

I will try to finish a couple of paintings I've started long ago. I've taken them out for reevaluation and got some valuable in sight from it. I promise...