A Dahlia in Fall Colours

It has been a while since I have posted a work in progress.  This painting is a request by a friend of mine.  I hope that she will enjoy seeing it in it's various stages.  I began with a fairly detailed pencil drawing (no photo of that) and then started with the shadows on the small white petals in the center, working my way out as I went along.

I did not want to get into too much detail before I had the background in, so that went on soon.

I realized that some of the earliest shadows were a bit light, so I started making them darker as you can see in the lower left corner. 

As always, I welcome comments.

btw, this painting measures 10 x 14".