Day 15: #30x30DirectWatercolor: Peony Apocalypse
Day Fifteen! Halfway there!!
I have to admit I’m getting tired – so just a quick one today. Another study of a Peony. This time I’m concentrating on volume, and also, trying to understand how to make the flower look luminous.
Key learnings: Flowers are translucent! They can’t be painted in the same full range of values you’d use for a solid object. Translucent flower shapes need to have high key shadows. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, but I’m a very dense sometimes, and the simplest things blow my mind.
Just try this: Keep everything in side the flower petals above the middle value, and everything in the background below the middle.
Ta-da! Your flower looks luminous. It’s so simple really, I don’t know why it should seem interesting to me, but there you go :)
~m
Citizen Sketcher 
Thank you, Marc, for condensing it to a simple, one-sentence, explanation. Brilliant! I’m writing this one on my wall. Ta-da indeed.
This is gorgeous! Thanks for the tips as well.
So Nice 🤓
Very interesting and very beautiful . Thanks for sharing your wisdom and insights. Always love your works.
Gre