Daily painting 32: 12/02/2019 Primroses

Oil painting on panel 8x8"

One of the positives to come out of my daily painting practice has been trying out new subjects.  I've really got into painting flowers, and have decided to make a series of flower paintings.  I think most of these are going to take me two sessions rather than one (remember I only have a couple of hours per day to create my daily painting - not a whole day) so while I'm doing these I will be posting every other day.
I'll still do other smaller daily paintings on the days I'm not working on this series.

These primroses were really hard to paint! The petals are almost flat and as a result had the very subtlest changes in value across them.  The folds in the petals were quite crisp and deep, hard to suggest without overdoing and creating very hard edges. I think I spent a large amount of time making adjustments to those creases and getting very frustrated with the results.  Its one of those paintings I like better now I can't see it compared to the subject!  
It seems to work ok as a painting but really I didn't feel that I'd done the primroses justice at all at the time.

I've included some process shots below.  I started with the pot and foliage but could equally have started with the flowers, in fact I think that would probably have made more sense as the flowers are likely to change much more. I'm starting with the flowers in my latest painting of some daffodils and will do a blog post about it tomorrow.

I hope the process photos are interesting, and maybe even useful if you are learning to paint.  If you have any questions, please leave a comment, I'd be glad to help.