A Sneak Peak

A week or two ago at the Farmer's Market, I bought two bunches of dahlias, one bunch a magenta/purple color and the other a red/orange color, and I put them in the same vase, on Gavin's and my dining room table.  I kept on looking at them and so loved the colors that I decided to paint them because the colors on the petals reminded me of a watercolor painting!

Well, by the time I got around to drawing them, they were almost gone, so I drew as quickly as I could, even though the drawing itself took a long time to do because I wanted to be sure to draw most of the petals so that I could capture the look of the colors on the petals.  By the time I actually started painting, the flowers were dead, so I am thankful that I took a picture of them before they went kaput.

I have been working on this painting off and on for the last few days.  Today is the first day where it actually looks like I've made any progress at all -- it took me a day or two to finish the main dahlia flower, and I only feel so-so about it right now.  Once I did the other pinky-purple flower, I liked the feel of that one much more.  But now that I'm starting to add some greens in with the stems and the flower buds, I think it is looking good and more cohesive and stuff.

I have this week off, so I'm hoping that I'll have the time and motivation to finish it this week, so I can start on some paintings that I promised awhile ago as a gift!