In this layer the shadows and mid-tones are done with a very thinned out burnt umber. I made a thinner with 1 part linseed oil and 5 parts turps substitute into a jam-jar labelled “very thinner”.
Because it is so thinned a small dab will tend to cover a lot, so a small (number one) brush was used to draw and shade rather than paint. You can see where I started (the top right of the flower) then decided it was pants and rubbed it off. It will cover-up later (I hope).
I’m working not from the original colour photo but from a grey-scale printout, losing the colour allows a focus on tone which is the aim of this layer. For any painting tone is far more important than colour. Realising it’s tempting to try and be too clever with too much shading and detail, I’ve mixed a series of tints (using titanium white) and then applied each member of the series to parts of the drawing having the same tonal values. Hopefully that means parts of the flower with the same tone have the same burnt umber mixture applied and the painting looks consistent. The down-side of this Flemish technique is you find out the results much later down the line.
Once this umber layer is done it’s left to dry. Colours subtly change as they dry and it’s always good to give yourself ‘space’ from a painting (or writing or coding or…) as a fresh return to the work typically helps you see problems. The actual flower is looking good with some of the petals having a nice depth, but some parts could do with a minor touch-up to define the petals better. I’ve left the background rather uneven with some lighter portions to give a bit of ‘texture’ to the background. Overall, I’m pleased so far but plenty of layers left to muck it up :)