I am working on the last section of flowers which are partially seen at the top right side of the painting. I feel that I will complete the painting in two more sessions, after which, I shall start the   jacaranda watercolour and the small (60x60cm) series based on ladies shoes. I love trying different  subjects from the ones that others expect from me plus it is interesting to see if my techniques work with less natural subjects. Not forgetting my next oil    already being outlined on the canvas.

This painting is in the 'end game' stage. It is beginning to look more complete. Some details will be added right at the end. Not ones that will necessarily be discernible, just slight changes in tone to add to the dimensional quality. Of course there will be parts that I wish that I'd done lighter which can not be changed or areas that lack details that I would have liked to have put in. Once it is complete, I shall have to 'live' with many things that I cannot change. 

I have blocked in the base colour of more flower petals and will add the details and highlights over the weekend. Tomorrow is a family day and is paint free. The colour of this photograph is not as intense as the actual painting. The colour depends on which medium (camera of ipad) I use. The colour of yesterday's post is more 'true'.

I feel a little apprehensive that I have overworked one of the petals on the lower flower, but I shall wait until it is absolutely dry and consider to either add a unifying wash or just a few distracting details. I tend to be very critical of my work, as I can never represent the perfectness of light on nature but it will always be my goal with watercolour. It is part of my personality I think, plus it is the way I see!
The stamens will be painted tomorrow also.

Now that the flowers across the top are becoming more complete, it is becoming obvious that, the flowers in sunlight are facing upwards and the lower flowers are facing downwards, creating their own shadow. It would be interesting to monitor which flowers get the most bee visits!

Even though I didn't paint today I thought I'd post an example of my work that illustrates how not using white paint can give a much more vibrant white. This is a white frangipani with glossy leaves. The only part of the flower I failed to paint is the beautiful fragrance!

I have no painting to blog today as I spent the day with the publisher who produces the prints of my work. I teach on Tuesday mornings but hope to put brush to paper tomorrow afternoon.

I have spent a little more time painting today and have, therefore, made more progress with the flowers. I have decided to bring two of the top petals out of the frame of the painting to add a little extra dimension. The one on the left just a little and the one on the right a little more. I have used this technique on a number of paintings which I developed to fix a blemish I caused whilst painting in a Townsville summer without air conditioning. A moist arm accidentally on the paper smudged the painting and so, not wishing to scrap the painting which was well advanced, I made the smudge into a leaf. The technique is not unknown to many artists but was brought to my attention with the 'painting emergency"!

More flower petals blocked in with some details added. I try to complete the wash over the whole petal and 'blot' with the brush to get the lighter areas. The deeper tones on the sunlit petals are completed when the petal is dry. Once the small deep shadows are added, clean water is used to 'bleed' them into the background of the petal. Daylight has a 'blue' bias so I have made the flowers in darker shadow more blue but this is chancy as I don't want the flowers to appear purple. The focus of the viewer, I hope will be on the 'pinker' sunlit blooms.

Little progress with the azaleas today with just some work of the lower flower in the shade but I completed two other working sketches. The figure is planned for the 'kitchen' painting and the ladies shoe (amongst very expensive ones many seen in Sachs of New York) is for a possible painting using a subject that I'n not familiar with. As an artist, I feel that it is good to challenge yourself and move the safe boundaries working in unfamiliar subject matter. This is how I progress and learn new things.

I used my camera instead of the ipad to photograph today's post which I think gives a more accurate rendition of the colour. I have used a masking fluid to keep the stamens white until the petal is complete and then work on the stamens separately. The flowers vary in colour which is intensified when in shadow, but I think that this is what will help to make the flowers recognisable for what they are. With azaleas, there are

marks on some of the petals which resemble shadows from the stamens but they are blemishes which ape the shapes. I guess that this is natures way of maximising the attraction of insects for pollination.

I completed the flower that is 'peeping' in on the left. Its job is to arrest the viewers eye and stop it leaving the painting. There is great contrast in some of the petals of the azalea, not just in their natural colour, some of which hardly have any colour, but in the shade as opposed to sunlit areas.

The other three buds have been added. I love the shape of flower buds before they open, as they have a very sculptural quality to them, which I hope I have captured. All my watercolours have a subject, or more accurately an object, but the real subject is the light and its effect on the object.

I shall work on the opposite side of the painting tomorrow as that will give me a 'feel' for the balance in the composition.

Some finishing touches to one or two leaves, a few more flowers in the background and the first bud of the subject flowers have been added. The flower shapes, flat in the white silhouette form, will begin to add dimension to the painting. I haven't decided if i will bring any flower petals outside of the frame of the painting yet, as I have in previous compositions, but, if I do, it will only be small extrusions. The technique does add extra dimension in the fact that, it can give the appearance of the flowers growing through the frame. We shall see. I'd like to add here that these ipad photographs do not portray the true vibrance of the colour.

The flower colour is now creeping into the background. Many indistinct blotches of colour with tonal changes affected by their light and placement. There are still a couple of leaf areas that need completing but I shall do these in conjunction with the flowers. I use a wash of colour sometimes overlaid more than once. I find that starting pale, I can increase the darker tones to what I am looking for. The paint dries a little lighter than when wet but experience allows an artist to make allowances for that. If the area is quite dark with just a small highlight I use two techniques to create the effect. I leave the highlight white and after the surround is dry, I ass a light wash to the highlight or sometimes I 'blot off' the highlight with acid free paper towel and then add clean water to soften the edges. The water I use is de-mineralised or distilled as to use tap water, with its small amount of chlorine, would affect the colour of the paint even minutely which I find unacceptable with my work.

I have sampled some of my colour palette for the azalea flowers and have started the background glimpses of colour. The colours here will all be used in some capacity as, even though it is tempting to see a flower as all one colour, in the natural setting, the colours are influenced by what is around them. The time of day also influences the temperature of the light which, in turn. influences the colour we see.
The sketch is a preliminary 'pose' sketch for my oil painting based on a cooking school in New York, tentatively titled 'American Kitchen'

This will be my last blog on the topic of 'leaves'. Tomorrow I shall block in some of the flower colour in the background, leaving only the flowers that will be in detail on the finished painting. This technique is similar to 'depth of field' in photography. I don't want the focus of the viewer to be on the background or even the leaves but on the flowers. I have used this in technique previous paintings giving an abstract array of colour shapes in the background with just the subject of the painting in detail (focus).
Before I add the colour I shall sample the colours of my palette to test which ones I can use to create the colour that is closest to the natural colour of the flower. Paints, however, I believe, can never compete with nature.

The white silhouette of the flowers is now becoming more pronounced. To give an idea of scale, the painting is 87.5 x 62.5 cm. I love adding the little details which complete the leaf areas giving them more depth. Some of the white areas left in the leaf spaces I shall fill in with flower colour, as if flowers are 'peeping' through the background competing with the stars of the show, the flowers in the sunlight (spotlight!)

Blocked in a few leaves at the top left and added minor details to some of the others. It is a challenge to see the difference but when compared to yesterday's post it might become more obvious. Just to illustrate how much detail I like in my work I have posted my largest watercolour  (90x137cm) which took 6 weeks of full time work. It is of the rainforest at Mt Glorious near Samford Valley where I live, which is close to Brisbane, Queensland.

The leaf area on the bottom left is now becoming more defined in tones. The original is a little brighter than the photograph, as it was taken in the fading light of an Australian winter evening with artificial lighting but I feel happy that the detail is beginning to form. In the enlarged picture the texture of the leaves is more evident. There will need to be some refinement of the edges and tones before I can consider the area finished. 

The paint has dried! As it is Mother's Day in Australia, I wish any followers of my blog, who are mothers, a very happy day.
I worked for a little while on the leaves at the bottom left corner, adding a few glimpses of sunlight on the leaves.  The area is obviously not finished, as there will need some little details added and a 'tightening up' of the edges which I need to be 'crisp'.  I like to balance 'fuzzy' edges with 'crisp' edges to make it feel more natural.  Some of the white areas of the background will have muted patches of the colour of the flowers added a little later, once I have mixed, and decided on, which colour of paint to use for the flowers.  I find that, if I start to paint in the flowers too soon, the colours can get a little muddy, which detracts from the bright sunlit effect on the flowers that I am trying to create.
You might notice that the larger areas of leaves are  at the bottom of the composition. I decided on this because it gives the composition 'gravity' and makes it more comfortable to look at because the viewer feels more 'grounded'. The suggested triangle in the composition is also beginning to become evident.

At the risk of boring any followers of the blog (my wife doesn't think that anyone would be interested is seeing "just one more leaf added". She is looking out for my interests here I hasten to add!) I have posted this update. I think that it does show my process and gives a feeling of the the time that I spend on a painting. Some of the time is just spent 'looking' at it and thinking about which tone to use and which part of the painting I want to give the detail to. Also, it is sometimes necessary to alter the composition slightly at this stage, in particular to the choice of colour and whether I include an extra leaf or add a flower to the composition. I like to form basic triangles with the base at the bottom of the painting with both shape and colour arrangement.

I found the pig's trotters quite interesting, I'm not sure where it could fit into the story but enjoyed doing it anyway. The hut was the pig's first house before the move. It looks ideal but was too small as she grew to 160kg+ ! I will need about 24 or 25 illustrations in total to tell the story, so about another 12 to go. I am using 6 and 8B pencils on textured watercolour board, because I like the texture effect.
The environment, the fabric of such an animal is full of texture so I feel that this is fitting.

I have  added more tone to the shaded leaf area at the bottom right. The interest in this painting will become more evident as the sunlit areas are included as the subject will really be the contrast between the lit and unlit or the bright tones and dull tones. I have included a previous painting to illustrate what I mean.

A few more dark spots between the leaves. My style of painting takes patience, not just to do, but to follow. It may be noticed that there is a leaf on the right half of the painting that is a little paler. I had originally blocked it in darker but decided that I wanted it a little lighter. It is still in shade but not so far back as to be as dark as I originally made it.So, I 'blotted' off some of the colour. When dry, I shall add the leaf texture again with a slightly different hue and, hopefully, it will end up a little lighter in tone. Watercolours can't be removed or painted over when dry without great influence on the subsequent layers, but by blotting some of the stronger paint off it is possible to change the tone and colour slightly.

Just a little more added. The leaves are dark but the contrast between the light leaves and flowers will give the painting dimension.      

Another illustration for the planned book on the pig's big move! In this one, she is not too pleased to be going even when tempted with her favourite treat (and mine) chocolate!

This stage of the painting takes time! I try not to commit the paint until I'm as sure as I can be that I will have it right. Even so I make errors but I find that I can overcome minor errors and sometimes turn them to advantage. Of course, if you view the completed painting for the first time, you would be unaware of the error inspired changes! You will have to look closely between the last post and this one to see progress. I have completed some of the darker leaves on top of the underpainting. I shall leave the sun-lit greener leaves until I feel I have enough of the darker shadowed ones. The reason I have given them a pinkish tinge (may not be evident on the photo) with the underpainting and a wash on top when completed, is that the dark leaves are in the shadow of the flowers and some of the flower colour will be reflected there but not on the leaves in full light.

At this stage, I have under-painted some of the leaves with warm tones. The leaves will be various shades and tints of green, depending on the light, either reflected or refracted, but the warm undertones will add unity to the work. The underpainting is a relatively quick exercise, but the leaf detail will take longer. If I need highlights, I sometimes use a latex masking fluid, but I only put it on for a short time period because, in the sub-tropical ambient heat, the longer it remains on the paper, the more difficult it is to remove. My watercolour paintings take a while to complete, so the daily changes are not always evident, plus sometimes I just spend time observing before I commit paint to paper. Watercolour is not easy to change once applied.