To continue on my flower kick, I pulled out this photo of a tulip magnolia Eric took at Duke Gardens back in the spring. I asked him to take a few different shots of this branch specifically so I could paint it at a later date.

Because I am using blue paper and not black, I am much more careful in the vine charcoal sketching stage… especially since I plan to leave the background alone. Most of the charcoal can be erased, but it’s hard to get rid of a huge area if I mess up.

So far I’ve added the white and pink shades and colored in the branch, but I still have quite a bit of the black outline showing. I need to decide if I want to erase the black edges or emphasize them, depending on the direction I want to go with this painting.