I see that I started this painting back in June. Summers are usually not conducive to painting for me. The gardens and preserving their bounty demand my time. This summer we had a few camping trips close to home due to Covid-19 restrictions.
I started the painting process by putting in the light yellows to get myself oriented. This is a fairly complicated painting. I need to keep my light colours light, so I am hoping that I'll see them if they have some paint on them. It's easy to rub out your pencil lines when painting. Watercolours don't rub out.
I took a break from the detailed plant matter to see if I could get some of the bowl's rim completed. It will make more sense when the interior is painted. I used salt for the speckling at the top, on wet on wet paint. I'm hoping to achieve the shine.
Today, I returned to the allium seed heads. They need to look three dimensional. Below is a closeup of that section. I've been lifting out some of the individual seed heads to enlarge them. Then, when the paper is dry, I go back in to clean up the background around them, hoping to make them stand out more. It's a process of darkening the outer seeds to have them recede and carefully shading the centre ones just enough to keep them light, but still make them look round. I am fairly happy with the cluster of four seeds just below the centre. Four down, about a hundred to go.
I am very happy with how the poppy seed heads turned out. Aren't they a beautiful plant? I never really paid attention to poppy seed heads until this year.
Well, the paint is dry now. Time to continue!