Painting from Nature – not my forte!

During one of my painting class, we learnt how to apply light grey ink in parts of the painting to suggest shadow.
Once the outlines of the drawing are finished, we applied light grey ink in parts of the picture that are meant to be in the shade, and with a slightly wet brush, we worked on this sort of grey wash to make it blend with the rest of the painting rather than stand out as a dark patch.
We tried this technique while painting from real flowers … and painting from Nature is definitely not my strength!
Nevertheless, I thought it was a good exercise that I am now using on a regular basis, especially when I paint flowers.