
I could work on this more but I think I’ll stop now.

It was much easier painting the flowers the second time at home. I did the first coat of paint in Plein air and the paint was drying too fast. At home it dries a little slower because I’m adding more water and not standing in the sun and wind to paint.

I painted a couple dead heads because I like the contrast between the spinning bright blooming flowers and the muted colors and drooping dead heads. The gardeners like to pull the dead heads right off so the plant will bloom more but I saw a couple of them and put them in the painting even if gardeners don’t like to see them.

I decided not to paint leaves in the background because my stems and buds wouldn’t show up as well. And these flowers are taller than the leaves, so the leaves would only be on the bottom of the painting. I thought the flowers are busy enough without the additional lines of leaves. I used tints of burnt umber for the background instead of green so you could see the stems and buds better. They make a kind of linear design element that contrasts to the star shaped flowers.

To paint the background I needed a lot of paint mixed up and wanted it to stay wet for a couple hours, so I mixed a few tints of burnt umber in these little plastic cups with lids. I added more paint and water mixing my colors to have close values but not exactly the same brown to make the background have a little variation in the tints. I made the paint runny and I had these 3 cups all filled about 2/3 of the way. I have a little left over which is still wet today since I added enough water and sprayed the paint with water before putting the lids on. I could use this brown to tint another paper for another acrylic painting.
It might be more practical for me to paint at home with acrylics than in Plein air. The next painting I do will be oils and brushes instead of acrylics and a palette knife.