Work in Progress: Petal Light #1 & High Summer Dreams II (Finishing the Center Flowers)

I've started to group my painting efforts and work on parallel projects with similar palette simultaneously, so today I worked on the center flowers of Petal Light #1 and High Summer Dreams II. I hope this switching back and forth would allow me to look at these parallel projects with a fresh eye, and avoid getting caught into and fuss over unnecessary details.

It is really interesting to me that every painting has this moment of coming into "existence" -- before that I just have a vague idea of how it might come out looking like, and despite of the ugly (or sometimes relatively pleasant) early stages, march on until that  point, at which everything suddenly seems to fall into place and make sense, and the whole painting just come together, and after which the painting process becomes much easier. Sometimes this point comes much earlier, after the first couple layers of underpainting, but in most cases it does not arrive until I get the center of attention in place and key it properly with its surrounding element. Of course sometimes it does not arrive until the very final passages, in which case it would be a painting of true struggles. For these two painting though, the turning point did arrive once I put in the center flowers in full color intensity and keyed a few darker passages surrounding it. I think now I have a very good idea of how the final painting would look like in terms of value relationship, and the rest should be much less of a struggle...

Petal Light #1, Watercolor on Arches 140# Cold Press Paper, 10"h x 8"w, WIP 6

High Summer Dreams II, Watercolor on Arches 140# Cold Press Paper, 10"h x 14"w, WIP 5