Blodeuwedd hair and leaves

I knew for this one that there was going to be a lot of white space I wanted left a clean white, considering I also knew there was going to be a large area of unpredictableness for her hair I went a little further to keep where I wanted paint free. I actually put the masking fluid on top of the cling film for the hard edge of her back, sealing it tight. I've had watercolour escaping to where I don't want it too often in the past.
Also masked out the flowers.

Blodeuwedd Colour and Leaf Tests

One of the challenges I had with this painting was the number of colours. I normally work with three or four different paints and just mix them to get my colour palette but for this one I felt I needed to get the right colours for each of the nine plants Blodeuwedd was made from as well as the colours for her Tawny Owl mask.
I probably would have been more comfortable if I'd just let some of the colours be more stylized, I also didn't realise till too far in that none of the greenery of the flowers was going to be used, I could have cut out some colours there too.

Top: working out each plant colour range,
Left Middle: Colour range for her mask,
Right Middle: Trying to mix colours to cut down the shear amount of different paints,
Bottom Left: Testing out different skin ranges (used the bottom right one,) 
Bottom Right: vague idea for where the colours will go.

Blodeuwedd Stamping Tests

So I've had this idea for Blodeuwedd kicking around for a while, I was wanting to do something inspired by Laovaan specifically this painting: Waves of Nature and I thought I'd throw in some of Kelogsloops' style as well. Except for one thing....I love the look of flowers and leaves in paintings but I get bored quickly of painting them. So I was trying to think of ways of giving most of her hair a plant based feel without hand painting each leaf, my mum suggested I  have a look at Ann Blockley's art. So my neat and controlled Laovaan inspiration wandered off a bit and Kelogsloops vanished completely. But at least I didn't need to paint leaves.

Blodeuwedd Sketch

Created from flowers Blodeuwedd was the wife of Lleu Llaw Gyffes in Welsh mythology.
After falling in love with Gronw Pebr she plotted to kill her husband. However Lleu could only be killed at dusk, wrapped in a net, with one foot in a cauldron and the other on a goat, next to a riverbank and by a spear that had been forged for a year. Despite managing to meet all these criteria Gronw only grazed Lleu with the spear and Lleu flew off as an eagle.
Blodeuwedd was turned into an owl in retaliation and Gronw died when Lleu threw the spear at the stone he was hiding behind, piercing through both the stone and Gronw.