Helen's Peony

12x9 watercolor on Canson 140 lb cold press paper done over the past week in another WetCanvas challenge of 2 hours time limit; my time was about 50 minutes to paint this floral, a red peony, of Helen's. COPYRIGHT 2020 Kay Smith

Sunflower Sizzlers - WIP

 22x15 watercolor beginning stage yesterday of a work in progress, a group of red and yellow sunflowers in a glass vase I first painted awhile ago.  This is on Arches 140 lb cold press paper,  On dry paper, I first laid down my darkest darks for their centers (quinacridone burnt orange, ultramarine blue, carbazole violet, quin gold, violet) and let the paint mix and mingle.

 I lightly wet the top background area with most of the same colors plus olive green and blue bice (American Journey); those areas are soft and out of focus and could be flower shapes, stems, or leaves.  Since I don't have my original photo reference I'm using the original painting.

In this view, I've added a couple of petals with top sunflower and the very large leaf front and center using UB, quin gold, arylide yellow, alizarin crimson, sap green, being careful with any tube greens being too harsh so I add a touch of any red.  I wet the leaf with my 1" flat brush first then lightly blotted it.  Fully loaded with two colors I quickly laid in the different pigments.  These steps show my direct method of painting wet on dry watercolor.