Any Suggestions?

Can anyone help with this little problem?

I began another painting of an Iris using the book I found courtesy of a post on Yvonne Harry’s wonderful blog (watercolourflorals.blogspot.com).

In the photograph I selected, in fact another picture of the variety that I painted for my last Iris picture, it was obvious that the front standard was in shadow but the rear standard had some light on it. This presented the obvious dilemma of getting the balance of values right and getting it to read so that the standards are correctly placed.

Attempting to solve the value problem has involved me in making a number of glazing passes and up to this point I don’t think I’ve succeeded. Here is where I would like a little assistance. Can any of you make suggestions as to how I might improve the balances in this painting? I didn’t help myself by putting in the variegated textured background without adequate planning.

Over to you.  

All the gear

Another Iris WIP - Watercolour on Rough paper 16" x 12"

Iris

I'm having a good week in the sense that I'm getting some painting time. The latest project developed out of a number of things going through my mind. First of all I've been interested in exploring some less than traditional techniques, currently getting some exposure with the recent publicity for the very fine artist, Jean Haines. Amongst these techniques is the use of salt and cling film to create texture. Whilst I've been aware of these techniques for some time I've never given them the time to get added to my own repertoire.

The next thing that I was thinking of was, maybe doing a series of paintings on one subject and after the recent picture that I posted of irises I thought they would make a good subject to explore. After coming to this idea I came upon a recent post from a fabulous floral painter, Yvonne Harry. She can be found at www.watercolourflorals.blogspot.com . In her post she had made a picture of an iris and added a textured background. I loved it. Off then to Google to find images of the iris variety that she had used and the marriage of the various notions running through my thinking brought me to this, hopefully the start of an exploration using the Iris as inspiration.

Iris - Watercolour on Not paper 18" x 12"