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.
Top: A general working out of where each flower type will sit in her hair and the over all colours for it as it gets further from her head.
Bottom: Working out the final paints I was going to use and how to mix them.
I used: Vandyke Brown, Burnt Sienna, Naples Yellow, Nickel Azo Yellow, Green Gold, Sap Green, Phthalo Blue, Purple Lake, Shadow and Payne's Grey.
I also needed to test out the best way to represent each plant. I knew for the more obvious flowers I'd just paint them in (Meadowsweet, Primrose, Broom, Bean, Hawthorn, Burdock) but I wanted to make sure the leaves (Oak, Nettle and Chestnut) came out clearly.
On a different subject when I was researching the flowers she was made of there was a few different versions that came up. One said it was only Oak, Broom and Meadowsweet she was made from another one said it was Cockle Flowers rather than Burdock. I went with the Burdock because the Cockle was such a similar shape to the Primrose and I was hoping the Burdock would add a bit more wildness to her.
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