Yesterday’s experiment was to paint a simple pink flower. When I took the picture, I noticed that the leaf was equally as stunning in its almost black-and-white coloration.

Today’s experiment

I decided that I would like to add that leaf to the pink flower. Here is the photo of the entire leaf:

Pink Flower with Leaf

But a second photo shows the coloration that I would have liked to capture:

I started by painting the planes of the leaf – between the indented veins. I envisioned leaving white space to indicate the highlights above each vein projecting from the major vein running down the center of the leaf.

Pink Flower with Leaf – Stage 1
12″X9″ 140# Cold Pressed Watercolor Block

In the second stage, I used Van Dyke brown to darken the edges adjacent to the white veins.

Pink Flower with Leaf Stage 2
12″x9″ Cold Pressed Watercolor Block

I also placed the shadow under the lower edge of the petal and put in the orange central vein. I thought it was so interesting that this was the actual color of the main vein.

Third stage:

Pink Flower with Leaf Stage 3
12″x9″ 140# Cold Pressed Watercolor Block

In the third stage, I washed the leaf in lemon yellow. and deleted some of the shadow with my ‘elephant ear’ sponge. The veins are no longer white, but I thought I could take care of that later.

The image below is how I finished up today’s experiment.

Pink Flower with Leaf Stage 4
12″x9″ 140# Cold Pressed Watercolor Block

I darkened the shadow, washed the areas between the veins with burnt sienna several times and finished by highlighting the side veins with Chinese white.

It is more abstract than the way I wanted, but I like the layered colors and the fluted effect. In order to capture the essence of the darker-shaded image, I would have had to approach this experiment in an entirely different way.