Orange Tulip painting

This is my sixth flower painting and is of an almost neon-bright orange tulip - the light is coming from behind the tulip rather than from one side or the other, which is why the colour is so zingy and in your face!

Don't forget you can click on all the pictures to make them bigger.

I started this one on Tuesday 30 April and finished it on Sunday morning 5 May,  less than a week from start to finish.  As always, I printed out the original picture onto A4 paper, then masked off my A4 acrylic paper with masking tape to the size I wanted:



The printout had slightly bluer colours than the one on my computer screen which I preferred, so I decided to make my painting closer to the computer screen one than the printed one, which meant it would be more purple than blue.

I used a very diluted acrylic wash to start covering the white paper with a bluey-green in the top third, and purple in the bottom two-thirds:



I then drew out the shape of the flower in pencil:



And painted it white so I could see where it would go:



Then I started working on the background, adding lighter and darker shades of green, blue, purple, violet, yellow and black:





Then when I was happy with the background - which always takes the longest time to do in these kinds of paintings - I repainted the flower white again:



And painted in the stem in a light mint green with white edges, then the flowers of the tulip in shades of apricot, orange, yellow, red and pink:



And this is the final, finished version, after removing the masking tape, touching up any places where the paint got under the tape, and signing it.  I'm very, very pleased with it!