Water Lilies Negative and Positive

Here is the photo reference. It is my photo of some lilies in Lincoln State Park near Evansville, Indiana.

Here I simplified the photo, creating some areas of passage in the water

instead of having all those lily pads. I wanted to keep the dark reflections

and add some more flowers.

After painting the underpainting I drew on my sketch. Where I knew I wanted some pinks

and yellows for the flowers, I added those, but not in a controlled way.

Colors used: cerulean, hansa yellow, quin coral, permanent rose, deep green.

I started out with negative painting for the first three layers, until I was satisfied with my values. First, I painted around all the flowers, since those were focus points, and also the two pads closest to the front. I started with blue at the top, blending to a green in the center, going back to blue, and then adding pink to make it a little purple. The colors were different, but the VALUES were about the same.

For the next layer, I painted the water with blues and permanent rose to create the passage between the petals. The value got darker by 2 values. This time I painted around all the pads and stems and flowers.

I painted the wrinkles in the pads and the shadows that form between the pads.The shadows are really the negative space of the pads themselves.

I painted in the dark reflections at the bottom with cerulean mixed with a deep green. 

For the leaves, I added deeper green to the centers to create the feeling of a bowl. I separated the flower petals with darker mixes of the permanent rose and coral. 

Last, I lifted some areas of the stems and petals that got too dark. I still have to go in and lift some reflection out of the water in the foreground to further create the illusion of sunlight on water.