More for Sanchez 50-50...

Things at home are a little chaotic here and I am quite distracted from the progress of the Sanchez 50-50 project by some bad health news from family member. There are a few pieces for the show whirling around in the studio, but frankly speaking I am far from happy with them. This new effort started well and we'll see where it is going... In the mean while, how is everyone else enjoying their summer?

Purple Hibiscus, Watercolor on Arches 140# Cold Press Paper, 6"h x 6"w, WIP 1

Painting a variegated dark background around a light flower subject can be tricky -- I usually don't use any masking agent since my limited experiments with it always seem to roughen up the paper surface, and I don't quite like the hard edge it leaves all around the flowers. Since wetting a large area in the background with complicated edges can take a lot of time, it's hard to maintain the entire background equally wet for a successful application of wet-in-wet. What I have learned is to use the flower to break up the background space into unconnected pieces, thus giving each piece a chance to be able to be painted separately, buying time for myself in execution. For larger connected areas, I look for narrow passages as "stopping points", such as the narrow area left to the bud on the left on the flowers, and the area right to the right-most tip of leaves. I will wet the area on each side of this narrow "mouth" separately, let clear water run a little bit pass the mount and into the adjacent area, but not flowing paint beyond it. This way, the entire background seem to connect into a coherent flow without any discernible hard edge in its soft passages, and allow the viewer's eye travelling around without much effort. What is your trick? Please share!