Next project - a white lilly

Don't think that I have been doing nothing these last few weeks. As soon as I finished the poppy, I started work on another flower - a lilly this time. No brash colours here. It's all subtle shades. And I'm struggling with it of course. It's a lot easier to go for strong colours and textures than getting just the right shade of grey to imitate indirect light hitting a beautiful white flower!

This particular lilly was at the back of Ballynahinch Castle Hotel, just overlooking the river. There was plenty of reflected light and I just love the abstract look of this picture.

I've been playing with it for the last while, but it's taking a long time for me to figure out how to turn this into a good watercolour. I've done a few drawings and tracings on the computer, using the Wacom tablet. The drawings here were all done without the assistance of a computer. For the last drawing, I actually measured, so the proportions would be right.

But I wasn't entirely happy with the overall balance of the picture. It lacked punch. Maybe when I'm more experienced I'll be able to get the light greys just right, but for now, I think I need to stick to strong colours and shapes.

So, as a starting point, I've cropped the picture, just showing the left part of it, and dropping the right-hand corner. I think the shapes are better balanced, and I won't have to worry about how I depict the hazy pink flowers there. I will have enough trouble painting the white flower itself without having to worry about other things.