Quercus alba - stage five

It is true, folks, the devil is in the details.  You can look at my painting now and say, "Wow, pretty good!"  But I'm not after "pretty good."  I want you to look at my painting and say, "Man, that's beautiful!!"  There's only one way to get from 'pretty good' to 'beautiful', and that is the Details.  I've come this far . . . why stop now?  This stage is actually really fun.  I get to pull out more Nifty Studio Tools which I've shown below. 

The first thing is, I need to be able to look very closely and critically at all the edges and make sure they are crisp and clean as a whistle.  To do this, I need my trusty magnifiers.  When I've got these on, I pray nobody comes to the door and I forget to take them off.  They are frightful!  But effective.

Next, to add all the fine details like the puckers on the acorn hats and the legs on my ladybug, I need tee-weeny brushes.  I have size 000 and 0000 to do the job.  It is these details that delight a veiwer when he or she is standing with their nose to the painting and really scrutinizing it.  I always like to give them some nice reward for their careful attention to the details; and my miniscule brushes to the trick.

Finally, I have to deal with the mistakes.  I'll talk more about this later, but thankfully there is a way to have a 'do over' in botanical painting.  It involves the razor blade and a burnisher, and I'll show you how that works shortly.  And now, if you'll excuse me, back to my painting!