Monochrome Flower--Unfinished

I was originally planning to wait until this painting was finished before capturing it on camera (I still need to add in the dew drops and touch up the flower),  but then I started worrying What if I end up ruining the whole project by adding in those drops?  This thought motivated me to take a quick picture a few days ago.  Since then, I've added about twenty droplets, and I still have about thirty more to go.  I have mixed feelings about the dew drops.  On the one hand, I love the little splashes of color against an otherwise flat, stark graphic.  Plus mixing all of the different colors has been good practice.  On the other hand, argghhhhh.  It is really difficult to achieve the look of moisture.  Each drop has to be a tiny bit transparent, which means I have to paint them in such a way where the painting beneath subtly peers through.  It's really hard for me to tell if they're coming out or not.  From my perspective, they look a little flat and not very "wet."  But despite the stupid dew-challenge, this painting has been my favorite one to work on so far.  I don't know why, but I loved doing the black background with all of those blurry images...that was definitely the funnest part.

I checked the local community college's catalogue to see if they offered oil painting classes, and I was thrilled to discover they do.  But it doesn't look like they offer any classes for the summer session, so now I'm trying to decide if I actually want to forfeit time during the work week to take a class, or if I want to keep winging it, or if I want to just buy an "Oil Painting for Dummies" book from Amazon, or what.  The verdict is still out on that one.