I have had the pleasure of doing a commission for a friend of mine with new walls to cover. The parameters were interesting as she let me have total freedom. I visited her lovely new condo, looked at the existing colours in the room and measured where the painting would go.  As an artist, there is often as much time spent thinking about the future piece as there is time spent  actually painting it.  So I ordered the large canvas 6 feet by 18”. In the meantime, I played with an idea using watercolour paper.   This is what I created to start with.  It is now framed and for sale. I love it! 

Then I began the 6 foot canvas! Exciting… I needed to have just the right blue.  This is the underpainting.  I will put the pictures in order so you can see the progression.  You can see the sketch I made on the top part of the easel.

Then, I worked on some flower detail. When you are painting it is important to have 3 or 5 of one thing, in this case I chose three flowers. Two makes it  more difficult to compose a pleasing composition, but of course, it can be done. You must also be aware of where your centre is and make sure nothing is dead centre. I use a cross hatch of three lines across and three lines down and then try to put the focus of attention where the lines cross on one side or another.  A good composition is essential to a good painting. I work all these details out in a number of thumbnail sketches before I ever start to paint.  Then I will make a larger sketch as I did in this case. You can see it clipped on to my easel.