Flame Azalea - 6

OK.  Today really is the first day of the rest of my life.  I begin a new schedule, which includes time every day to be creative!  Happy me.  I begin where I left off with my neglected azalea sketch.  The first thing to accomplish is to get it transfered to watercolor paper.  Since it is a complex drawing, this takes a little doing.

The first thing to notice about the flower clusters  - from a technical standpoint -is that the stamen, (which are very very pale yellow, practically white) pop out in front of the flower petals, which are orange.  Since you can't paint white on top of another color in watercolors, the only way to do this is by using masking fluid.  Masking fluid is sort of like rubber cement.  I paint it on wherever I want the paper to stay white.  It dries and creates a safe barrier.  Then I will carry on with the painting, and when the underlying areas are done and dry, I will remove the mask and like magic, the little white stamen will pop out.  That's the theory anyway! 

Here is a photo showing my original pencil sketch (above), a pen tracing of the main outlines (on the right) which I used to transfer the design, and the watercolor paper (below) with the faintly drawn image and the masking fluid already applied.  Can you see the blue lines?  That is the mask.  I found a product that has a pen nib at the top of the bottle, so that I could draw fairly thin lines.  It was much easier than trying to paint it.  Imagine painting with rubber cement.  It is a nightmare and I was glad I could avoid it!

Because of the mask, I will have to paint this piece a little differently.  Normally I like to build up all parts of the composition at the same time.  However the mask cannot ramain on the paper long, and I need to try to hurry to completely finish the areas behind the mask first.  If I wait too long, the mask material will start to fuse permanently with my paper and the painting will be ruined.  How long is "too long"?  According to the manufacturer, that is 24-48 hours!  Yikes!  I guess you know where you can find me tomorrow!!