The small, twisted vines have been painted with some shading, but in a very limited value range. I’m using only wet-in-wet technique here, to avoid too much sharp detail. I don’t want the vines to be the focus at all, but they have to have some depth as they move around each other. So, there will be more shading but no sharp contrast in values.
Here you can see that the main, large vine has also been started. The left and upper portions have had one wash, while the lower and right sides have had two.
I don’t want all the browns in the painting to look too much the same, so the large vine is a combination of raw umber plus purple. This doesn’t jump out, and the hue ties in a bit with the orchids. The small vines are a touch warmer, since I used very light raw sienna and raw umber for them.
There will be more layers on the vines before they’re done. I’m thinking of scumbling some areas and streaks with greens to give an impression of moss here and there. There will probably be more washes of the browns as well, until the overall color and value range seems right. It’s a bit hard to judge how dark to go without any of the blacks that will be in the frogs… I’ll just have to make sure the frogs pop forward when I do add those details to them.