Finished a New Piece

I just finished a new piece in my Parks Project series. It's called Sequoia National Forest No. 1. Yes, I went to a park created to celebrate the world's biggest trees, and painted a succulent less than and inch and half across. Typical.

I did a pretty good job taking in progress photos with this one. Usually I don't think to do that until the end.

I've done some pinstriped paintings before and wanted to try it again. The first step was to put down some artist's tape.

Next I mixed up a chromatic black, thinned it down with water, and poured it over the surface. The textured bits shown in the picture is rock salt to give it some mottling.

Here it is after it dried, with the tape still on (left) and without the tape (right). I was surprised by how well the tape blocked out the paint. I thought there would be more bleeding around the edges.

Next, I did another round of staining with a chromatic black. I used more water in the second batch of paint so that the stripes would still show. (I forgot to take a picture after this step).

Then I started painting in the plant. 

Here's the finished piece next to my source image! I think the end product captures the feeling of the moment when I took the picture. I was clambering over the rocks in the Tule River at the time and just happened to look down to see this little flower. It was a quiet pause in the middle of a bunch of activity.