I started this painting last year from a photo of a peony in our garden. I found this composition difficult because of all the petals. Midway through the process of creating the painting, it just looked like a bunch of pink blobs to me, but eventually it took shape. I have been reading Susan Harrison-Tustain's "Glorious Garden Flowers in Watercolor" to do the leaves, but in this case I did the dark leaves by lifting them out of the dark background. It isn't what I intended. When I put the dark background in without leaves that appeared to be in the shadows, the flower seemed like it was floating and disconnected from the earth. I put in a stem where there wasn't one in the photo and some leaves in the shadows. I like Susan's dewdrops, so I put in a couple of those, too. Despite the difficulty, I will probably do more peonies since I have so many photos of them.
