Painting of tulips. Step by step.

Here is a a painting I have done with the theme of tulips. It is a bright study that looks at the interaction of shapes, as well as the negative spaces between the flowers. I have exaggerated the colours and the light and shade contrasts. This will eventually be used as a greetings card design.

Here is how I created the painting. 

Initially I drew out some outlines. trying to get a good balance of shapes to fill a square canvas.

I then added a wash of colour over the background to make the flower shapes stand out more. This was just some purple ink I had leftover from another project. The ink ran a bit, and was messy...but at this stage it did not matter!

I then blocked in, , some of the basic colours I would be using, to get a rough feel of the idea. It looks very basic and simplistic at this point. This was mainly to check the composition worked.

Next I worked a bit more in to the background colours, using unmixed colours, to strengthen the design. I am using acrylic paint. 

I then started to play about with the background shapes, creating simple swirls and areas of colour.  I also added some extra colour to the tulips. I have introduced some pink areas, and started to block in areas of petal detail.

After this I continued to work more in to the flowers and the background. I am starting to work with smaller dabs of paint, which is my usual style! I am now doing the detail with Chromacolour paint, which is a type of liquid acrylic.

This is working toward the final painting now. I am adjusting colours and adding finer detail. I have made more green and turquoise dots in the background. I have put more yellow back in to the flowers.

Here, again, is the final painting. I have refined the detailing, using more layers of fine lines and dots of paint. The colours have been adjusted a bit more, working in to areas of light and shade.

I shall put this up for sale soon. I will add the details here when I do so.

What do you think??   Comments always appreciated.