Yellow Onions - Painting #4

Tried yellow onions this time, and I think it was a little bit easier.  I 'kinda' like them which is unusual for me!   However, I still think I  over worked them. Wish I could learn to leave things a little more abstract because those are the paintings I really love, but I can not resist the urge to blend.   These actually looked awful until I blended the shadow and light side together quite a bit.   Blending gives me great pleasure too, so even though I like the looks of more abstract paintings, I think I won't worry about it for now and just try to develop my own technique.  Maybe I can leave them more rough looking after I'm comfortable with the whole process.  The thing that is amazing me is how each of these paintings so far have looked  just awful half way through, but once I put the background on, it all comes together and the colors turn out very close to the real thing  (and I'm only using my limited palette).  At the beginning  they look no where near close to the colors I need, but like magic, at the end the color was  remarkably close!  What  I  think I really need to learn how to do though is invest lots of variations of color at the beginning instead of trying to add my variations as I go.  Right now, I put the colors  on, blend, add some more colors,  blend....   and I think that is what makes it look overworked.   I always do the background last because then I can 'cut' down my subjects.  Makes them look more 'planted' into the paint instead of on top with too severe of an edge.  One thing I've learned, is  to put a little bit of the subject color in the cast shadows.  That way the shadows don't look so drab.   After looking again at this photo, these cast shadows still look drab.  They are too brown and should be more of a blue or purple and a little lighter.  Oh well, I'm learning....  But maybe I'll tweak it tomorrow;)