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.