On My Back Door-Step #6

Bunch of Fireweek (#6)

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Watercolor on paper 11in x 15in
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It's a rainy day and not good for watercolor painting outdoors. So I set up my painting gear in the light coming through the back door, put a handful of fireweed flowers into a Mason jar, and settled in. Indoors or out, I still have to record the image before the light moves, so once the pencil sketch was established, I applied paint just as loosely as I would do out of doors.
This painting is a great example of wet-into-wet washes, without doubt the loosest of watercolor painting techniques.
Wet daubs of pink blurring into pale green stripes give the gentlest of neutral shadow tones. A fat painty brushstroke touching into a clear water shape defines a flower form. Then there's the background, all water and paint with a characteristic back-flow effect revealing the blue and brown pigments that this gray was mixed with. Back-flows can be disastrous or very effective, and this painting has examples of both.
So be it.