After I finished working on Musing Holly, I wondered how it would have gone had I used opaque (or “buffered”) paints instead of my usual transparent technique.

I chose to use the “Musing Holly” reference because it was still clipped to my easel. It had the added benefit of familiarity, as I had just been working on the first image and was already aware of which areas were the most troublesome.

This image wasn’t finished as I found out what I wanted to find out.