Clematis ('Water' topic)

As mentioned in my previous post, the next subject at our painting group was 'Water'.
I was due to go North to visit my aging mother so could only stay for half the session, so was looking for something small to do.
I came across an article by Jan Kunz in her book 'Painting Watercolour Florals That Glow' which described how to paint dew drops on petals.
I have done this before but thought it was a good small exercise to practice for an hour.

I took a piece of heavy 'not' watercolour paper, and in the top LH corner, I painted freehand several clematis petals and a centre of yellow/orange. At this stage the flower painting was not the object of the exercise so accuracy was not my prime concern.

I then proceeded to paint a few dew drops onto the petals to remind myself how they worked. This filled the necessary first hour of the session and I left for my journey North.

When I got back home, I thought that my club exercise was perhaps better than expected and it might be worth finishing.

I drew in two more flowers, and tried to make them fit the original wash which had only been done for the first clematis.

I used only one colour for the petals...Quinachridone Purple... and the same pigment with a little Indigo for the background.
I originally pencilled in a bud and a couple of leaves, but decided to keep just the flowers with their limited palette. I added a few more dew drops, not all of them totally successful, but ok I think, and of course had to use a bit of white acrylic to alter the centres of the flowers as Clematis has the lovely core of white/cream stamens.Finally I darkened some bits of the background to make the flowers stand out a little more, but tried to be careful to keep the original top flower the main part of the painting.
As usual, my final task was to erase the pencil drawing where possible. No splatter this time!

                                                               'Clematis After Rain'
                                                                    33 x 22 cms

Unusually for me, this is a comparatively small painting and it will go into a 16 x 12 inch frame.