Beatrice Gets Her Wings

Okay, for some reason that last entry wasn't letting me load the image but this time all went without a hitch!

At left you see the first layer of wash for one of our illustrations. The day was a bit dark, so its not as clear as I'd like but you get the idea. What I noticed is that the Beatrice, our butterfly, had a thorax that was proportionate to her species. That's fine, but in the enlarged image it will attract too much attention, right there in the center of the art. I attempted damage control by experimenting with some pattern work and varying the values but could see that this was not what we wanted. Also, I didn't like the way this watercolor board was taking the pigment. Soooooo, what next? What do you do when that beautiful drawing flops on the watercolor table? You'll see in tomorrow's installment.