Garden Painting Day 6 : Spanish Lavender

With the pansy leaves on the bottom left corner of my painting, I started on the bottom right yesterday, with a clump of Spanish Lavender (lavendula stoechas). It was gorgeous weather yesterday, sunny and calm, and I actually took the easel (thanks to my brother John) on the deck and painted outside for a while in natural light - what a treat! Good thing I took the opportunity, the clouds had rolled in by the evening, and today was overcast with occasional showers all day.

I have now realized that it will be easier to work from top to bottom, so I can paint each successful flower on top or in front of another, rather than figure out how to paint the next flower behind this one. It is easier, though, to visualize the garden from front to back, so I'll need to do some more thinking about layout. I've already deviated from the paper layout, so I can't just follow that.

I also realized that I should not be hasty with adding the actual flowers. Once I was done, I realized that the foliage looked too flat or two-dimensional (photo left), and I added in highlights and shadows with two different shades (photo right). It would have been much easier if I didn't need to work around the flowers which were already painted in.

See also Garden Painting Day 5 : Pansy Leaves & Kids Projects.