Green leaves

Here is the end product of my green experiment:
What I like about it:
I love the background, particularly the pink and blue bit, but also the dashes of bright green at the bottom. These were achieved by painting wet in wet: you cover the whole area with water and you drop fairly concentrated watercolour in, and look at the colours interacting, tilting this way or that to mix the colours, or blowing on the paint as it dries, to reveal the colour underneath it. That's how I achieved the green spots at the bottom - I put in water, then yellow, then blue, then I added some more drops of yellow when the paint was starting to dry and then I blew to disperse the blue and reveal more of the yellow.
I also like the shadow effects achieved by the various glazes of Phthalo blue over Vanadium yellow.

What I don't like about it:
The veins in the leaves are too thick. That's where I'll need a ruling pen to try and apply the masking fluid with a lighter touch.
Also, I should have left the area above the leaves white. I put in some blue over yellow without thinking about it properly, and I lost the dash of bright light coming through the leaves.

Overall, I'm happy with the effect. The masking paper worked like a dream. It's a low-tack transparent plastic. I put it over the leaves at the very start, before painting anything, so I could do the background without having to be careful around the edges. I'll definitely use that technique again - it's a good way to create a loose, free-flowing background, painting wet in wet, while at the same time protecting the paper so you can do the details on the main feature afterwards.

Here is a picture of the photo and the watercolour side by side so you can compare. One thing I need to come clean about: I traced the drawing from the photograph (shock!, horror!). I had done a free-hand drawing of the picture beforehand, to analyse the lights and shadows, but when it came to the actual painting, I decided that tracing was the best way for me to get the details right!