Ghost Orchid Watercolor

[prem]

I was inspired to try something by a post several years ago on the previous instantiation of Misti Little's blog (Oceanic Wilderness in my blogroll). In the post, she was interviewing an artist friend who used watercolor pastels to do painting and was describing how they gave her the precision of pastel drawing with the final result looking like a watercolor after water was applied to the paper. This intrigued me immensely, so I filed this away in my brain. Fast-forward to about two weeks ago, where I was picking up some art supplies for my kids--I spied a box of watercolor pencils.

I figured I'd give them a whirl. I immediately fixed upon Miguel Urquia's Ghost Orchid as my subject of interest. Here's the photo below:



And here's the result. I feel like it's pretty good for my first effort, but I definitely have some room for improvement:



Here are a couple of detail shots:





Let me know what you think, but please remember, this is my first attempt at this medium.

---Prem

[Connie Star]

It's nice. I have one critique, which is that the background is distracting. I might have left it blank and outlined the flowers with either a dark shadow, or a fading to gray area.
I think the medium is detailed, so I'm not sure how you would go about that. I've not used watercolor pencils much. I suppose you could try using a wet brush (assuming the paper is heavy enough) and blurring the background.

[prem]

That's a good observation. In hindsight, I should've gotten some masking solution and masked out the negative areas and then applied a more even wash over the background. I didn't even know about masking when I started out on this one, so that's something to try next time around.

---Prem

[flhiker]

Good Job! This is something that takes practice practice practice. I dabbled in oils a few years back (before orchids). Keep it up you will only get better. I hate to say that I seen that plant early this year and it wasn't looking to good. Not sure why maybe the cold got to it. It didn't flower at all.

[Connie Star]

I still occasionally dabble in watercolor, but mostly I do photography which I'm much better at.
I still like "en plein aire" painting, when I get a chance.

[Swamper]

I'm sure Mike will be proud Good job.

[prem]

I wonder if I could, at this late stage, mask off the flowers and tree and try to paint a darker, more even background behind them. Would the masking fluid destroy the existing paint at all?

---Prem