White Clover

This watercolor ATC should be subtitled "It's Not Cheating If You Can Get Away With It" - because, while I painted it for an ATC swap where, technically, anyone could have received any cards, I kind-of-made-sure a friend of mine, who was also participating, would receive it...

Theme of said swap was "Fabaceae" (because "botany" is simply not nerdy enough for us, hence the oddly specific theme... ehehe) and I knew my friend's favorite plant is white clover so I handed in one of those, so the swap host (who also knew) had no choice but to give the card to her (or be unspeakably rude). It was entirely against the spirit of the thing, but hey, technically there was no rule I could not do this (white clover does belong to the Fabaceae, after all) although I know it's a rather generous interpretation of the concept. *cough* Of course, the card wound up exactly where I intended it to.

Painting this one took a loooong time. I think it's at least 20 layers of color over one another (with drying phases in between), and in some places, the color was finally thick enough to shine a bit. I then used acrylic varnish to keep the watercolor from flaking off. (I guess this is the point at which any art instructor who by accident ends up reading this will faint in shock.) No, watercolor is also not intended to be used like that, but hey, I've always been good at the creative interpretation of unspoken rules.