I've been working fairly consistently on the Taj Mahal for the last several weeks, and have made good headway into this picture. The picture above shows the minarets in better detail and you can see the subtle shading in them, along with the swirls of blue in the sky. Below is a different angle of the piece, along with some of the trees that were in the original clip art picture. I have removed some of the picture, because I have seen recent photos where there are not many trees any longer. So shades of green become my trees, and shades of browns and golds become the earth.
Below shows my four choices of beads for the walkway that surrounds the reflection pond in front of the Taj Mahal. The first was a little too fancy for what I wanted (it's the string of beads that I threaded for a sample. Bead #2 is a permanent finish matte silver, that wasn't contrasting enough. Bead #3 is a permanent finish matte gold bead and #4 was a wonderful ivory with a gold interior (but a size 15). 
When will I finish? Who knows.....I don't really have a deadline!
The winner was bead #3 - the matte gold bead - enough contrast without being jarring, enough colour that it doesn't hide, either. The picture below show the whole canvas. You can see that I tried to use "sidewalk" line (on the right side of the pond), but the size 11's didn't fit right. My buddy Sue, suggested that I use one color of bead in different sizes from front to back. Good suggestion, but it was late at night and they weren't in my stash. Since Alan and I are still counting pennies, I made do with what I had. I'm happy with it. On this, you can also see that I have painted out some lines that I didn't want, added circles to help with the lines on the sky.
When will I finish? Who knows.....I don't really have a deadline!
