Well, after almost two weeks I finally got back to my rose watercolor painting today.  If you missed my first post on this topic, you can check it out here: https://jmnaszady.wordpress.com/2011/10/26/how-to-paint-a-rose/ .

I was distracted. The weather changed, and so did the month. It feels as if we’ve gone from August straight to November. In the meantime, all the petals fell from the real thing. But, as predicted, the leaves remain. I thought this would be the last rose of the season, but now there is one more bud. It’s been so cold lately, we’ll see what happens to this one.

Painting with watercolors can be a lot like playing poker, I think (although I’m not what anyone would call a card player). You have to know when to hold ’em and know when to fold ’em. Today I only painted in the stems and leaves. I wanted to keep painting, but this would not have been a good idea. Sometimes you just have to leave things as they are.

In the past I have been known to “over work” a painting. So I stopped myself, and will continue another day. If I kept going, I would inevitably have gone beyond the point of no return. It’s so much easier to put paint down than to pick it up again. You can’t paint over watercolor without the color underneath showing. You end up with a muddy mess.

It’s all about transparent layers, and a light hand. I must meditate on my next move. Now that sounds a lot like chess, doesn’t it?