Red Dahlia Watercolor

I'm finished with my red Dahlia watercolor and above is the final photo. I had a few more tweaks and changes to make this past week, which I finished the other day. Then I spent the last two days just looking at it on and off deciding if things needed to be brightened or darkened in certain areas. It measures a large 18 x 24 and because it has been painted on masonite board, will need no frame, it can hang directly onto the wall.

Remember where I started with it?? I know we saw these photos little by little over the last months but I thought it would be fun to assemble them together now, to show the first stages to the finished piece. Above I had just sketched on the design and then did half of the background. You couldn't really even see what I had drawn out at this point.

Now the background is done and you can see that I've started to base in some of the petals. Playing around a little with the color, to see what I would like to do.

I realized that I needed to change the color to get it more like the original photograph. I mixed a nice red/orange for the petals which I really liked and stuck with through the whole painting. I've also in this photo above, started to work on the center area. That was a bit tricky color wise but I finally ended up with something that made me happy.

Here I am very close, although...not quite. I'm really seeing the painting coming together and it feels as though it is almost finished. Yet I still had to do a few more of the petals and then the center also. Then of course, come the tweaks that I spend a couple of days working on. Little things here and there that I thought could make it better. Always putting it away for awhile and then looking at it an hour or two later with a fresh eye.

Finally, just yesterday, the finished painting. You might remember from my earlier posts that this painting was taken from a photo of a dahlia in my garden this year. In fact, my husband used that photo in my new banner above. I'm very happy with the outcome. I've already purchased more masonite board to start my next painting on. We'll see what it will be, I haven't quite decided yet.