"Lotus Dream" (oil on linen; 10" x 8") sold

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Every summer I visit a lotus pond at a nearby park to admire the noble beauty of the lotus flower.  For the rest of the year I dream about its beauty.

Here I am using a Silver Bristlon flat brush #4 for the transparent underpainting.  The drawing has a lot of straight lines, so it helps to use a new brush with nice straight edge.  The unnatural green color is viridian.

I am in the process of blocking in with opaque paints.  The challenge of this painting is differentiating many greens in lotus pads: warm/cool, dark/light, and intense/grayed.

Continuing to develop the pads.  I also changed the "background" colors.

"Lotus Season" (watercolor on paper; 12" x 8")

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Every summer, when the lotus season comes around, I head to the waterlily pond at the Green Spring Gardens Park in Alexandria to greet these glorious flowers.  The sun was high when I took the reference photo and the flowers and huge leaves all glowed with translucency.  Initially, I left the background white, but it didn't work.  When I dropped the dark, granulating paints and allowed them mingle on the paper, the painting began to glow!