Georgia O'Keefe I'm Not

oil pastel 6"x9"

So it all started with this little cone flower pic I used for the blog. It had started out as a doodle in watercolor and ended with oil pastels on top. My sister, Myra saw it and liked it. She wanted to hang it on her wall in the bedroom. She loved the autumnal colors. First off,  I explained that the petals were pink; not what she was seeing.Anyway, it was only 6"x9". Too small for the space she envisioned.

Back and forth we went. She sent me photos of her bed spread--not the colors of my pic. She sent me a photo of her walls. I saw coffee and cream, she saw white. She found a photo in her phone of an old painting of a flower of mine with the colors she liked. The colors were not that of the original! I found the original photo of the pic in an album on Photobucket. The colors were different! Tech-NO! Corruption and miscalibration!
This is what designers face every day. So, OK. I offered to do a painting, of cone flowers in autumnal colors, big-18x24.

Now comes the fun. I have been doing very small watercolors for the blog and for our Saturday class. Fast, impulse, gesture-type pictures. 4"x6" approx.
How to enlarge this little pic to 18"x24" and keep the integrity of the original?
I already agreed to change the colors as well as the size; and what about the background? There's sooo much more of it to fill in.

soft pastel 18"x24"

I looked at images on line; photos and of paintings of cone flowers and lazy susan. I made sketches of different layouts. I did small ones and large ones, with pencil, colored pencil, watercolor pencil and oil pastel.

I decided to use soft pastel. I feel comfortable using them and have gotten good results, especially with flowers. There was so much background to fill in, and they're so messy.
 
I tried again with watercolor, but expanding the flowers to giant size felt unsettling. They lost their delicacy and they came out looking very heavy handed and like spiders. Yuk.

Seeing this latest version at night, I also realized that this picture is going in a bedroom and will probably be viewed mostly in low light. That's an important consideration for the choices I make.

watercolor 18"x24"

Hmmm. Since the request is for autumnal colors, I'm thinking now of changing the type of flower, or maybe doing something completely different, like leaves. I'll have to talk to my sister and see what she thinks. So it's back to the drawing board for me.