Hello John....firstly, well done for tackling what must have been a tricky, time consuming piece of work.
To take this forward, look at the work of the best-known piercers, such as Richard Kennedy or Margaret Gerard and you will notice that their work is turned to just a couple of millimetres thickness before any profiling or piercing takes place. This gives the impression of lightness to the piece and would avoid the rather heavy look that your petals have. An advantage of this approach is that profiling and detailing work is much easier, as there's so little thickness of timber to cut through and to shape at the edges.
Les
