Today’s painting was an attempt to finish the leaves, after a morning spent on a commission project. I had about five hours left in the afternoon, so I used those, adding the green leaves, smoothing out a few painting errors in the stems, and cutting in with the background colour. I used Mir Amarillo Real and Alizarin Crimson as colour for the left-hand rose, which will need another layer. I shaped it correctly, and now only need to blend it together, but importantly I covered up the graphite marks made by my pencil.

I was glad to get the leaves done, and most of them will need only a little touching up. I am feeling good about the dark blue bottle as well, given my propensity for painting dark blue glass, but the watch is making me nervous and the bronze vessel needs shaping properly. The right hand side of that is done, and I will need to lighten up the shadows that I have painted over the surface of it, cutting back out towards the bottle there. The drapery should be easy, but the watch chain and its reflections are going to be a day in themselves.