I am working on a free tutorial from Ann Kullberg. She instructed to do the background first. I botched it and burnished the daylights out of it to make up for my lack of skill. She advised light dense strokes laid in high density at low pressure, which I am too impatient to achieve.
The leaves and stem are turning out better, so I will continue on. The glare in the center is from the flash. I will try to photograph the finished product under better conditions.
Siena Blue 