Painting Reflections - Lily Pond

This post takes you through
the steps I used in creating
"The Lily Pond".

Unlike "Across the Pond"  

this has a very shallow sense of depth

 or 3 dimensions.

So it's not technically difficult,

but the key is preparation and planning.

Using the colours (or similar ones)

 from yesterday's palette 

block in one layer of  vibrant colour.

Be bold as it's easier to tone down ,

but impossible to bring back that purity.

There is a lot of blending at this stage

 as we're creating the layer under the water surface.

Blend in the implied direction of the subject,

more vertical for the tree shapes

 and more horizontal for the sky forms.

I include a few of the surface lily pads at this stage

(Orange/ yellow green and blues are compliments 

and will create mud if blended.) 

But keep this layer fairly light as we'll be building on it!

Step 02

Step 02a

Here I'm tucking in the sky colour (blues,greys) 

around the trees to add sparkle

 and make the trees less dense.

Step 03

Next, develop the sky and clouds keeping the edges soft. 

Step 04

Use a light touch to create the  lilypads.

They are ovals (as we're seeing them at an angle)

and I try to emphasis the forward edge. 

Step 05

As the tonal range is limited 

I looked at the design without colour 

to check the compositional flow. 

The lower left corner was a little too vague 

I added some soft sky colour under the lily pads.

The Lily Pond -  Leslie Snider

Final Step

Finally  a few soft accent shadows 

are added under the lily pads.

More could have been done at this stage

 but liked the colour balance and freshness.

Monet is the most famous of waterlily painters

and  I can hardly wait to study his work and ideas.