Waterlily step 11

I got a little more done this evening. Not a lot of change from the previous post but darkening more of the shadows. Once they are all done close to the finished value, I'll brush a light glaze over all the shadowed areas of petals to unify them.

Waterlily step 10

It's cold, grey, wet and there are snow flakes in the air. :( But it's a good day for painting. I continued to add darker values to the petals in shadow and started defining some of the stamens in the center. I have to let that all dry and I'll do some more a little later.

Waterlily step 9

I was able to squeeze in an hour of painting this morning trying out my new studio arrangement. I moved all the furniture around yesterday to avoid bright glare on my work from a south facing window. I feels strange but I'm sure I'll quickly get used to where everything is. I have to work nightshift tonight so this is all I'll have time for today.

I darkened the back petals some more and have started adding shadows on some of the brighter petals.

waterlily step 8

I tend to work on one painting at a time and that seems to be happening again. I want to keep working on this one now until it's finished. More work today on some of the leaves and then I started blocking in some of the darker values of the petals in shadow. Half of the whole flower is in shadow and I will have to keep going darker to get that look. I have to work tomorrow so I doubt that I can get anything thing more done then.

Waterlily step 7

I didn't have as much time to paint today as I had hoped. I managed to darken more values on the leaves and start the darkest, back petals of the flower.

Waterlily step 6

Today I finally got the background dark enough. There will probably be a final wash (maybe dark green) over it at the end but it is dark enough for now. I still have to work on the lily pads to the bottom left to get them looking the way I want, and then I can start on the flower.

Helen's kids step 3

I continued to work on darkening the values all over the faces and started to block in the hair.

Helen's kids step 2

I started adding the first light washes all over the painting to work out the areas of highlights and general shapes.

Waterlily step 5

I have continued to add dark washes to the background. It is still too transparent and needs a few more but I'm working out the greens that have to come through it. I want to finish everything else before I start work on the petals.

Hellen's kids step 1

This is the start of a small (8 x 10") commission. It's hard to see the pencil lines even though I tried to adjust the contrast. It will be more obvious once some colour is added.

Waterlily step 4

I've mostly just added another layer of darks on the background. I can't do much more until that dries well.

Waterlily step 3

I stared adding some of the greens in the lilypads around the flower. They will all be much darker when finished of course. What a difference painting a large macro painting after doing the bookmarks which were basically miniature paintings.

Waterlily step 2

I masked the areas that were bright white that I wanted to save (they are the pale blue colour mostly in the middle). I started with a first wash of a dark green grey colour over the dark areas of the background. As usual, there will be many more washes added to get it dark enough. I also painted a first wash on the stamens so I will be able to paint the darker areas around them more easily.

Waterlily step 1

This photo might be a little hard to see because of the difficulty getting a strong contrast on the lines of the new painting. In the next post the composition will be easier to see. This is 20 x 24" and is from a photo I took of a lovely white waterlily growing in my little pond.

The last of the bookmarks

I'm happy to be finally finished painting bookmarks. I've run out of bags and don't want to order any more because I don't want to paint more of these. Maybe in a year or two but it's a lot of work. I still have about 50 left for Christmas sales so I have plenty for this year. Now it's on to larger paintings including a commission.

Getting to the end of the bookmarks

This is today's batch of bookmarks. I did some copies of ones that had already sold as requests from a few people so that is what I've been painting for a few days. Only six more plastic bags for them to go to reach 100. After that it is back to painting larger work.

The one on the far right is on it's side to fit in the picture.

A few more bookmarks

I finally had a little time for painting so here are the bookmarks finished today.