Hmmmm ... Looks Like My Riding Was Better than My Painting Today

Masked the perimeter, then painted graded aureolin wash

Realized I had to mask the entire thing, then started painting very dark green washes [yes, I know it looks black here]

After about 5 dark washes, I removed mask

Roses = aureolin with aureolin + pink + cobalt blue  for shadows
Leaves and stem are mixes of phthalo green + quin. gold + quin. burnt orange 

Bit more playing with the rose petals, and tone down the leaves a bit


I had to paint something today ... ANYTHING! So I did some sketching, and decided to finally get this rose out of my system. [I've been thinking of painting it for weeks] It's small - only 7.5 x 5.5 inches, and I just about went cross-eyed finishing it this evening. I find yellow and black very hard to work with. Any way, here it is. And as ALWAYS, any comments or questions are most welcome.
As for riding, Bruno and I had a very good time today. He is finally getting the concept of "inside leg into outside rein", and he is carrying himself better all the time! :)