Chinese Lanterns

This is a Chinese lantern from my garden, like us all, the plant isn't perfect and I wanted to show how it had been damaged through its age and by insects, but yet there was still so much beauty in this dying plant. I loved the shapes of the stems cutting through the picture, so I used layers of paint bringing forward, then pushing back areas like the large leaf towards the top.  I love the characteristic of gold, its ability to change the life of the painting, how it can look so different depending on the lighting - the tone can sometimes be darker while at other times lighter than the painted image.