Finished Painting

So, I worked on the sunflower painting until the wee hours of the morning and then more during the day. I think I'm done...better quit before it gets any busier. (I mean the painting, not the life!) I was originally calling it "Blue Bricks" but now it will be called "Heaven in a Wildflower" because I added some lines from a William Blake poem: "to see the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wildflower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand...". I learned a few things, mostly because of the watercolor paper (large circle lower right). I used to use watercolor paper a lot for collage, but it's been a while... (1) It was a challenge for me as it warped whenever I moistened it with another layer. I didn't adhere the upper left half of it to the canvas until almost the end, and of course that addition of medium from the back was almost disastrous. The paper showed a large lumpy ring of medium-my fault for trying to do it at 1am! I sort of got rid of it by ironing the canvas from the back! (had to be careful because the oil pastels on the petals wanted to iron off!) Then I camouflaged the leftover lumpiness with a layer of rice paper. (2)Also due to the paper...the marker I used for the lettering wanted to bleed when a layer of rice paper was added close to it. (3) I'd used a wax transfer on the watercolor paper in an earlier project. The wax was applied on a much wider area than the transfer, and when I wanted to do lettering in that space, the wax resisted the marker. I wanted something to finish the edge of the circle and found an old necklace in the right color! I sort of like the wooden seed beads here, but I wish I had done fewer through the center and not left them strung together. It may give me ideas for the next painting though. I'm pretty happy with it...hope it works for my cousin! Have a wonderful, blessed Christmas!