Commission work in progress

If you take a look on my "Paintings" page you will find 3 narrow pieces with branches and blossoms on them, years ago I made four similar pieces and decided not to sell them.  Recently I was asked to do some commission pieces which are very much like the four blossom panels that I have.  When I make one of these blossom pieces I progress in a specific way, first the background colour, then when that is dry to the touch I paint the branches on in black.  Each of the four panels have their background colour finished and I am at the branches stage.

In the above photo is a section of one of the branches, I have just begun to add a bit of dimension to the uppermost tip with some white paint.  You should be able to see that I have left some of the black paint for the branch in chunky bits, I like to do this to add dimension to the painting and give the branch the effect of coming up off the canvas.  These chunky areas are made by twisting the brush as I move it along the branch, squeezing excess paint out and leaving it on the canvas.  These pieces also work as a nice guide as to where to put some white paint for more dimension as seen in the next photo...

Much of the white highlights are added using a fairly dry brush and done when the black branches are dry to the touch as I don't want too much mixing of the paint.  The blossoms will be added once the branches are finished and I will update that process in a later post.