During a weekend workshop on botanical painting, the instructor emphasized masking fluid for stamen details. Honestly, seeing those tiny white spots preserved made all the difference in my peony study. Tbh, without that precision, the organic flow would have just looked messy in that context. Ngl, I used to avoid masking fluid thinking it was cheating, but now I see it as part of the toolkit. Balancing those sharp highlights with wet-in-wet backgrounds is what creates depth. So yeah, I totally get where you're coming from on this.

Yeah, that timeline creep sounds brutally familiar...