Clematis... final stages.

Here's the final painting of the clematis subject.

Miss Bateman Clematis final painting

I painted the flowers by looking carefully at the reference and seeing where the darker tones were within the petals.  I wet the whole petal and stroked in a mix of cobalt blue and a touch of alizarin crimson and a touch of the green mix on the palette.  

I removed the masking on the centres and painted the stamens with a pale yellow and then stroked in alizarin crimson on the ends to make the distinctive centres.

When the flowers were painted I had to adjust the tones considerably among the leaves around the flowers.  I laid the dark mix over the leaves etc. that were underneath to make them recede even more and put in some very dark paint up against the petals to make the flowers pop out.

I quite enjoyed the challenge with the emphasis on the "quite".  I think my reservations before painting the subject were correct and that in itself is good learning.  The subject was too flat and needed some sunshine in it.  But onwards and upwards...what next I wonder?