Lonna's Iris and teddy bear updates

Here is Lonna's second pass on her iris. It's beautifully done.

If something is really complex, sometimes the best strategy is to just kind of transcribe the visual information in the most basic ways. That is, light areas and dark areas first and foremost. Within this general shape there are slight variations of value and temperature.

1. and 3. These are some of the slightly darker shapes. Notice that even the darks of most of the flower's darker shapes are not close to as dark as the dark greens of the background. This helps to pop the flower. Look for opportunities to set off both the light and dark areas of the flower with background light and darks. Everything is relative.

2. There are a lot of white or close to white areas that when painting in watercolor should be left white.

4. Notice that the bright orange shape and the space near it is larger than in the painting.

The blue-violet color in Lonna's painting is really beautiful.

So if I were to do this painting I would push the darker spaces of the flower just a bit as well as leaving the lights really light. And then I'd look to really push the darks and lights of the background to strategically push the flower foreward.

   Lonna has darkened the browns of her bear to great success. A very sweet peace.

The only idea I have to take Lonna's piece a bit further is to set the context of the stay at home bear a little more by adding some panes. I also am not sure what the shape is on the arm of the bear and I might consider leaving it out of the painting. I might also add a slight smile to the bear.

Fun stuff.