Commission

I have been working on a commission piece for a few months now.

Deciding on the layout was really what took the longest length of time and is really the most important element about a painting. If you don't like the subject, nor the composition, 

there really isn't any going back. 

Painting on such a large canvas is always intimidating. It's a large surface. 

The drawing didn't go straight on perfect and I had to shift things around a little. I am also working from multiple reference photos (one for each flower and then the leaves in a separate one). You will see changes to this drawing as I continue. 

Correcting the drawing and filling in the colors came next. If you look at the top left corner you will see that I took a flower out because it just wasn't working.

This next stage was filling in the details and getting the shadows right. With all the references coming from different sources the light sources were also different. 

Cleaning up the lines and making the colors pop (look at the lower half of painting in above photo) is the part of the last stage of painting for me.

This painting is going to be a showstopper no matter where you see it in the room.

Almost done! Just a few more highlights and fixing the top background from streaks.