Camelia Light - The power of a flower

Painting flowers can be a joy and sometimes a headache. With so many petals going every which way it is easy to lose your way. The depth and detail can be lost as the colour jumps at you saying "paint me! paint me!"

The way I paint it quite methodical in that there is a process. I need to find the form first and save the detail for later. Working in shadow and then light. As light is where the detail is - if I leave that till last - I win the battle. 
So first I work in the shadow building form using the mid 3 tones. It always amazes me when you add the third tone how the object jumps from the page. Then going to the light again using 3 tones. By treating the two areas as seperate as I can using different pastels and different temperatures, The glow is found. 
The last thing I work on is the edges. I think this is where most people get hooked up. to make an edge you need a light against a dark. It is this contrast that finds and edge. If I leave that till last I have the control over where a petal is defined or not. 
Patience is key. One tone at a time. Building scaffold, then walls, then the detail. 

You can also see a sneek peak at the fibonacci spiral at work in my composition. 

If you would like to see the full demonstration video of how I painted this Camelia, follow this link: CAMELIA LIGHT