By the time I finished this painting, I had probably gone through 2 different bunches of zinnias. Working from life with flowers as subject matter, means that I have to have a strategy for getting the work completed before the blooms fade. In this case, I was lucky in that zinnias have a long season, and the farm that grows them is just down the street. I began by arranging the flowers in a way that drew me in, then quickly went to work starting with the vase and the flowers that hung down around it. I worked my way up, making sure to get the key (anchoring) blooms painted in next. Those would be the large reddish orange one near the center and the yellow one to the right of it. By that time, I needed fresh flowers and added them in to the existing fading blooms, placing them as needed to create an interesting completion of the composition. The three outstretching blooms at the top are examples. I "posed" them in such a way as to create a graceful twist and sway to the arrangement.
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