Japanese Quince

Short of joining my NYC USK group outing at the Prospect Park, I thought I'd try drawing some nice spring flowers from this shrub.  It's the Japanese Quince, scientific name Chaenomeles, a spiny shrub that blooms clusters of pinkish red cup shaped petals.

With my portable sketch easel lowered at walk stool height, I thought I got some decent pencil mark.

Sunset hour has come and gone.  It was difficult to color without the real flowers in front of me.  Coloring will have to wait another day.

Not sure how the flowers would look like after the rain we had overnight but surprisingly, they held up okay without much difference except this one bud had bloomed overnight (it's that top middle cluster sandwiched between the left and right pink highlights). 

A few strokes here and there using a #4 Filbert, #1 Round, #1 Script brushes made out of synthetic bristles and I was done.  I used the 6 colors DS Essential WaterColor Set to mix the green, grey, and brown hues.  A few strokes of pure pigment with almost dry brush.  It was really fun to experiment with the watercolor and some color pencil highlights.