Posted by Kerry McFall on March 8, 2016

As I was wandering around the Pacific Beach neighborhood in San Diego last week, I took  photos of flowers and trees that struck me as “exotic” for spring.  The orchid tree was one that seemed particularly unique, with it’s double-lobed leaves.  Now back home in the rainy gray of Oregon March, I can play with my paints and pens as I get to know each plant better.

Phase 1 was some splashy fast watercolor in my Pentalic ‘Nature Sketch’, a la Danny Gregory’s “Seeing” in Sketchbook Skool (at least I think it was that class!).  The paper wasn’t a great choice for this many glazes…  Phase 2, I added some black Prismacolor marker lines (.005, .01, .03, and .05) and background blues.  After I’d darkened the background more with Payne’s Gray and indigo colored pencil in Phase 3, and kind of went crazy with my white pen, I decided oops, better hop on the Time Warp.

I was able to backtrack with Photoshop: I layered Phase 3 over Phase 2, and using an airbrush-type eraser, I got rid of the bits I didn’t like from Phase 3, revealing the simpler treatment of Phase 2 underneath.   It’s hard to see in a thumbnail, but enlarged it’s quite noticable.  Still haven’t decided which I like best, 2, 3, or 4… but on to another plant, this one’s overdone!