Metamorphosis of a Mushroom ... or ... Process of Painting a Red Russula

A photo I took last Fall was my inspiration.

Sketches and value idea for background.
I wanted to create a vignette, which,  as I understand,  is more focussed, and three areas of the painting run onto the edge of the work leaving a fair bit of white.

I masked the mushrooms, and did a thin wet-in-wet application of   dark brown, then dropped in some green .

I needed help figuring out how to paint the grasses - who better than Albrecht Durer? He created so many exquisite watercolors of animals, landscapes, and intimate little scenes like this one.

I thinly applied some green around the mushrooms, then while wet, used a rigger to drag and flick some of the green outward.

Masking off

I then started [one by one] darkening the blades of grass with varying shades of green. I painted the large fungi  [fungus?], and dabbed drops of blue in the smaller ones. I also started on the underside of Big Guy.
I took this photo with AV mode, and it is quite bleached out.

Here they are right now. It is quite a detailed work, but I must admit I love working on all the  intricate bits - it's somehow soothing for me right now. There is still much more to be done, but the basics are here.
The colors I am using are leaf green, indanthrone and quin. burnt orange for the grass, and for the rest - aureolin, cobalt blue, quin. red, quin. sienna and alizarin crimson.

I apologize to all of you whose blogs I follow - haven't been following very well. Life is more hectic than I like right now. I am one of the executors of my aunt's will, and that means a lot of sorting, digging for information, talking with lawyers ... UGH! I find that at least one of the things I love doing has to be left out daily - today it was walking Maggie, my dog. But she did get out with my friend. Bruno was ignored for a few days, other than feeding and watering and making sure he was OK. Today he had a good grooming session and some TLC. Planning for classes takes a lot of time, too; I am teaching a watercolor course and a drawing course. The drawing class is harder for me to teach - drawing comes so easily to me [been doing it for decades] that I don't really have to think/plan as much as for painting. So appreciating and understanding a student's difficulty with drawing takes more effort and time.  And of course there's the part-time work as a dental hygienist. But I have made a decision to retire very soon, and I feel very good about that.

Anyway ... that it for now. I will try to post once a week, and keep up with all you bloggers.

Thank you for dropping by!!