And even more Dragonflies on a Tray . . .

Most people would’ve painted a second tray a different color than the first tray. Or maybe most people would’ve painted another poppy and added maybe a butterfly.

I’m not ‘most people’.

I painted the 2nd tray turquoise and tried to come up with something that would coordinate with the Poppy & Dragonfly.

Why is it that after I’ve completed a project, then I know what I should’ve done in the first place?

Sound familiar?

The background were the same colors. Okay. I’m off to a good start. Then I painted a couple of green bamboo stalks with medium green.

Some more medium green for a little depth.

Then some wispy branch-thingies with lime green.

Since I was trying to use all the same colors as on the first tray, I added some turquoise for shading.

Kinda cool. Different, but I liked it.

So far, so good.

For the lily pads I mixed medium green and turquoise which gave me a dark teal.

Then I dabbed –literally ‘dabbed’ some lime green to create the ‘top’ of the lily pads.

A little more turquoise + medium green to shade the edges. Then some ripples with turquoise and white. I did a little tutorial on painting ripples here.

Now . . . what color to make the water lily?

I basecoated it in white and thought, “I’ll figure it out later.”

I say that a lot to myself when I’m working.

Since the dragonfly on the first tray was white, I figured this was a no-brainer.

I figured wrong.

I put a little wash of violet and turquoise on the dragonflies.

But something wasn’t right.

So I added a little white while the violet and turquoise was still wet.

Still not right.

Maybe some detailing with Sharpies will work.

Up close? Not too bad.

From a distance though? It looks like the painting is unfinished.

I compared it to the first tray. Nope. Something isn’t right.

Now what?

I added a wash (paint + floating medium) to one of the wings. . .

Rinsed the paintbrush with water. . .

picked up some floating medium on the clean brush . . .

and took OFF a little turquoise. . .

wiping the turquoise off after each stroke . . .

This is looking better . . .

Then I added some more turquoise to the inside and outer edge of each wing.

 

And called it quits!

I’m happy with it, even though it doesn’t ‘match’ the first tray.

But – it’s just a piece of canvas that can be exchanged for another one any time I want. Which is why I painted on canvas and not the wood tray the first place!

Have you done anything recently that you wish you could ‘do-over’?