Before you begin a project, you most likely have a purpose, plan, and goal in mind. For example:

• You plant trees and flowers to attract birds and beautify your yard.
• You paint the walls in your home to update it or make it more inviting.
• You organize the garage so you have room to walk around and so your husband stops complaining. (which leads to the "Rabbit hole" below.)

Rabbit hole.

This is not where I thought this article was heading, but by way of example, here we are talking about rabbits. Rabbits chewing up not only my flowers, but the lower leaves and branches of my Rose of Sharon and burning bushes.

I already had a set of semi-circular cage segments to place around vulnerable plants, but I had to order more this year from Amazon because the rabbits were tenacious, as you can see in the photos below!

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Not as innocent as he looks.

Bad bunny!

Fenced in to keep the rabbits out.

Back to the garage.

Once the rabbits were no longer a bother, I took down all the cages, the sections of which ended up in disarray in our garage, making it difficult to navigate. 

My goal was to have a clear walkway through the garage to make it easily traversable. My plan was to declutter, sweep, and reorganize. My purpose was for the fence sections to be stored safely and be easily accessible for use next year, as well as to make my husband happy.

Intention

Intention in art.

When beginning a painting, ask yourself a few questions:

• Why do I want to paint this (my purpose)? To make a statement? Create a likeness? Capture the light? 
• What is the story I want to tell? Or what do I want to communicate to the viewer? 
• What mood or emotion do I want to portray?

It's not a bad idea to jot down some of your ideas, which can help keep you on track. If I already have a title, I write that down too.

Once you have an idea of where you want to go with the painting, then you can decide what colors, style, or brushwork you plan to use to accomplish your goal.

Magical.

When I began the watercolor of my mini model at the Butterfly House, I did not ask myself those questions. (I always say I paint instinctively, and I do, but asking myself questions like those above could have saved me some time and trouble.)

First attempt.

During my first attempt at painting this subject — yes, I gave up twice before completing the third and final piece — I struggled with the background (too dark, lost the freshness, tried using stencils and didn't like it).

I also struggled with the butterflies. They were unfamiliar to me, had complicated patterns and were not especially pretty. 

It was the foreground that caused me to abandon the first piece. My attempts to suggest dappled shadows on a gravel sidewalk (as portrayed in the reference photo) were just not to my liking. I felt like there was too much going on which distracted from my subject.

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Every time you paint, you're aiming to convey something, an atmosphere, a mood, a message, a likeness. Your choices in colour, shape and tonal values all flow from that intention... Clarify what you want to express, what you want to achieve and you'll find your work strengthening and your results improving; even before you change a single brush stroke of your technique.

~Janine Gallizia

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Second attempt.

At this point, by doing things I did not like on the first attempt, I had formulated a better idea of where I wanted this painting to go:

• My purpose/intention was to create a likeness, yes, but also to create a light, airy feeling and express the sense of wonder of the little girl experiencing a magical moment of interaction with the butterflies (the story).  
• My plan was to eliminate (or minimize) the foreground.
• The butterflies had to be simplified — they didn't have to be a real species after all, so I could be adventurous with color.
• I decided to suggest leafy plants behind the model's head, using my negative painting style.

Best laid plans.

At least I had a plan. But again, the background got too dark and I struggled with the negative painting — it felt overworked. And I wasn't happy with the make-believe pink and blue butterflies I had created (haha). So I abandoned painting number two. 

Third time's a charm.

Because I was NOT doing the same things over again, but decisively and purposefully changing my tactics, this painting would be completed. What I did differently:

• I used a different substrate. I switched from hot press to cold press which I thought would be more conducive to negative painting.
• I decided to switch to monarch butterflies, as I have lots of reference photos of these beauties from my own garden. The colors of the monarchs would echo the warmth of Eva's flesh.
• Probably the most important change was the restraint I used in the negatively-painted leaves in the background. I kept them light and airy, which supported rather than overpowering the subject.

What's your intention? Answering that question may save you some time in the long run!

Paint. Love. Repeat.