Tulip : Pink Inspiration

A few weeks ago, a fellow painter at Avon Valley Artists sent me an e mail with the most amazing painting attached that he had come across on Face Book. I was totally mind-blown by the painting, totally what I would aspire to achieve. The artists name is Cheng Zhenwen. I have called the flower Pink Inspiration, and I believe it looks like a peony.
I had a really good look and felt that there was lots of gouache or acrylic ink (for the whites) in the picture. I was determined to have a go! I needed some source material, and as luck would have it , the tulips in the garden were nearly over, so I took a few snaps, and thought this one might serve the purpose.

It seemed about the right shape, and sort of got over the plagarism issue by being a completely different flower and one I had grown myself.
The first stage was the drawing. I needed to put in most of the petals, as I was afraid of getting lost within the complexities of all those petals. I also wanted a vague second bloom on the left hand side. On the drawing you may be able to see that I put a cross in all the shapes of the second flower, to help me remember what I was painting at each stage. I needeed to remember to rub these out before painting over them, especially in the very pale areas.

I painted in the background first, keeping it very loose, and then started to build up the petal shapes, using neat white acrylic gouache on the petal edges, and dropping gouache onto a wet surface when I wanted edges to disappear. I used mostly Venetian Violet and Permanent Rose mixed with a variety of blues to get the range of pinks I needed.

When the central flower was complete, I used a lot more water, paint and gouache to suggest the second bloom, and allowed the gouache to  bleed into the pale areas of the background. It runs and granulates very well if there is plenty of water. I added the green leaves (maybe they are a tad small) and completed the background.
Finally I gave the painting a good splatter with both the gouache and the pink mixture to loosen the finished effect.

I am really pleasewd with the outcome, but yet again I have failed to paint as loosely as I would have wished. Maybe it just isn't in me to completely let go. It is also a whole lot more difficult . technique-wise than it looks, and Iwould love to find more of his work to have a look at and admire, I will certainly keep on using the gouache as I really like the effect. I do not think I need have any worries about copyright, as my effort in no way lives up to the beautiful painting which was my inspiration!!