Waterlily Painting

Value sketch

The leaf of this waterlily was a problem child, as far as this painting goes. It is flat. Very flat. Maybe a slight upturn along the edge in a few places, but not a lot of different textures, values, or interest to be had on the leaf. It wasn't even considerate enough to sit a tiny bit above the water so as to cast a shadow or reflection. It made a lovely photo at the time, and if you are Monet, it probably would have made for a lovely painting, but as a painting reference I found this specimen decidedly dull.

Dull waterlily painting

So after much grousing and grumbling, I decided to throw caution to the wind and invent a reflection and some more shadows on the damn thing. I don't like doing this. I am comfortably co-dependent with my reference photos and straying from their photographic reality gives me gray hairs. In fact, in the sketching stage of this painting I had an argument with myself; half of me wanted it to look exactly like the lily in the photo, down to the last petal and the other half said "So I missed one or two petals - no one will know." (...except now all of you do. Keep it to yourselves, please). And since the number of petals ended up not being exactly the number my specimen had, a little made-up reflection in the painting could hardly hurt at this stage. Right?

Watercolor of waterlily. Now with more lilypad bling.