Plein air Iris with a watercolor underpainting

'Pretty in Purple' 5x7 pastel

Today I am sharing another one of my recent plein air paintings. One of the things that happened on this paint-out is that my easel leg broke. It actually turned out to be a good thing because I ended up keeping the easel chair height and I sat down to paint (which I never do) Why was this good you might wonder? Well it made me slow down for one thing and really take my time with the watercolor underpainting. You can see the underpainting in the bottom photo. I usually rush this part and get a wet washed out mess. I did about 6 watercolor underpaintings and really felt like I was finally getting it! I had so much fun!