Watercolor Floral Painting - Iris Update #1

Things are starting to take shape and I am quite happy with how things are going at this point. I need to get the background in to better judge the values so that I can start getting into the darks to further push the shapes of the petals. Again the lighting is not great, while the petals are a mixture of grays, in real life you can see the transitions in color from gray, to blue, to pink, to yellow etc. I am using only the 3 primary colors for this flower and the background (although for the background I am using a darker less sedimentary blue) to give more punch.

I don't know if it is due to all the fighting I have been doing with acrylics of the past couple of weeks or the scale of this flower (11x15") but I am really enjoying painting it, I feel a floral series in my future :) It is a nice change to be working with larger brushes and not burning out my eyes on fine details like I was with my recent driftwood painting. Change is good :)