One Lotus Painting

After doing the front of my art journal with a lotus (in previous post), I HAD to do more like it, so I did two 8"x10" paintings inspired by it.  This is one, and I'll show the other one in another post.  

This photo above shows the beginning stage of it.  First I painted the base colors, then I smeared on a thick coat of Heavy Gel Medium and drew into it while wet.  After letting that dry overnight I started to paint it.

As you can see it looked quite different at this stage.  I liked it but it didn't feel quite right to me, so I put it aside for a week or so.  When I went back to it, I just kept adding layer after layer of paints and glazes until I finally liked it.  

To finish it off I gold-leafed and antiqued the sides of the canvas, then put a few coats of sealer over the whole thing.

So now I think I'm addicted to painting water lilies/lotuses!  I'm planning on doing some bigger ones like this too.  I think it'll be fun!  And I still have a couple more finished ones to share with you.  

For a while now I had been wanting to do a series of some kind, and realized that's what this is... my accidental waterlily series!  There's nothing like a good "Happy Accident" is there?