Principles of Composing a Floral Still Life in Oil

Still life artist, Katie Liddiard, guides you through each stage of development for painting a floral still life. Join her as she starts out with developing the composition with live roses. She aims to create a dynamic set up that has movement for the eye, while preparing for the subtle opening of the live flowers during the process of observing them. She’ll then move on to explaining how she draws the composition on the surface in paint, followed by laying in the initial wash of the painting. Then she moves onto developing the impression where the study of simplified form comes into play. Once the impression stage has had time to dry, it’s time to finish the still life. Katie shows you how to take the flat, simple form of the impression into rounded form. Finally, she brings the whole painting together by addressing the background and allowing the supporting elements, like leaves and atmosphere, to balance the piece.

At every stage she allows the flowers to continue being themselves instead of trying to control their opening. She notes that she isn’t painting these flowers in one exact moment, but painting them in a series of moments to try and infuse the most beautiful parts into the piece. This allows for more movement in the painting, even though it may also bring some back and forth chasing to capture those beautiful moments on the canvas. Remember to step back, squint, and simplify throughout the whole process.