My thoughts and progress about my works

This is a piece I did for my cousin's daughter so she and her brother could surprise their mother.  It was great fun to work on these three little frogs and their colorful background.

It was difficult to decide which type of tree frog to paint so I began by drawing what these three little 'cousin' tree frogs on tracing paper which is easy to erase on. I like the idea they might be cousins so when I had it like I wanted I traced it onto 300 lbs Arches watercolor paper. 

Then I masked out the frogs and foreground foilage so I could work on a wash for the background foilage. Once that was to my satisfaction through a couple of drying and reworking processes, I removed the mask and began work on the frogs.  I like to start with the eyes because when I get those right it is great encouragement to continue with the process.

Each frog took numerous thin washes to put a glow underneath the final colors, then I added several layers of shading to get them right. On the Green-eyed tree frog, (on the right side of painting) I used an alterating salt and intensified washes of color to make the skin texture.

The finished product is below.