Now that the flowers have started opening I had to reduce the number of stems in order to simplify the composition.

Process Shots

I decided to use a limited palette here and try to emphasise the lime and turquoise.

Process shots

Painting these lilies every day from life - lets see what happens!

These lilies are still in bud so i’m hoping to paint them every day as they emerge. This one was all about the negative spaces and strange shadows!

12” x 12” oil on board

12” x 12” oil on board

12” x 12” oil on board

Turns out I had the same taste in flowers 15 years ago! This one took some concentration…I actually had a sore left eye from squinting for 4 hours by the end of it!

I can’t keep calling these ‘flowers in a vase’- so i’ve decided to name them after something that happened to me that day!

Sometimes when you know an animal is pale coloured it can be very hard to convince yourself that the shadow colours are correct.  I am aiming to get my brushstrokes down ’right first time’ with no re-working.

Wiry haired dogs are definitely the hardest to paint, you’ve got to kind of drag one colour through another on the palette so that you get that ‘flecking’ in the brushwork of two or more colours.

Trying for economy of brush strokes here...it looks simple but for some reason it’s not!

Creating good light and shade is essential for a still life set up.

The great thing about these little flower paintings is that you can create a new set up each day by rotating the vase / changing the background colour / changing the vase - so many possibilities!

I was brave today- I picked some stems to paint from the garden and painted them from life without any drawing first which was quite liberating actually!

Looking great in its new frame :)

The orange bits - top right were not in my original plan, and neither were the shadow shapes on the brickwork, that just happened at the end of the painting as a bit of an experiment really! 

The painting above is from a small section of the garden, roughly in the middle of the panoramic. I like how the 4 quarters of the painting are very different to each other and I’m happy with the colour scheme.