McKee Spring 2

I'm working like crazy on my series of paintings for McKee Hospital in Loveland.  This is 'Spring', the 3rd in the series of seasons.  The mid-ground is laid in and wild irises drawn in the lower left foreground. The irises and foliage have been masked out with a special fluid, allowing me to drop in a deep value contrast.  I don't often use masking fluid but where there's lots of tiny detail it's really tedious to try to negative paint the background around each element -- this is a perfect example of that.