Just in Time for Christmas?

I bought some lovelypoinsettias at the market the other day and thought, with Christmas coming, it would be a great painting to add to my my funky floral series. I just love these plants. The red is so vibrant against those green lovely shaped leaves.

I am hoping I will be able to do the painting before I leave on my Christmas Holidays.

So after a few sketches I decided on this idea:

Here is my rough sketch done in water soluable pencil crayons:

Well, I showed my mom the sketch the other day and she felt there was something missing in the composition and she said would like to see more of the red flowers. So I decided to add another in the middle using Adobe Photoshop and my wacom tablet. Here is the revised sketch reflecting 3 flowers. I think I will be do this revised composition.

I finished my drawing on the canvas and it is a bit messy. Sigh...My drawings on canvas are pretty much messy all the time...lol.
Now it is time to do a light wash outline on my drawing and then block in colour! Well, I finally decided on a colour for my background. I am going for a minty cool green to accentuate the reds. Then I blocked in the colour for the background, added a dark red coat for the pot, outlined the flowers and leaves and blocked in some colour there. I also decided to leave some breathing room between one of my Christmas balls and the pot. It looked a little stage there kissing the edge of the pot.

Unfortunatley, I did not get to work too much on my painting today. I was only able to block in a warmer red coat on the flowers and a coat of gold and white/silver on the balls. I will next outline everything to see the different shapes before I add more colour and start the modeling work. I have a busy weekend ahead so I hope I can squeeze in some painting time.
Sorry about the pic and flash. It is getting dark here now in Copenhagen at 3:30 pm. - Winter is here!