Painting a still life

As anyone who paints from life knows, if you paint real flowers....they move towards the light, continue to open, or just droop after a while. So, you need to paint the most important flowers quickly....before they change. After establishing my background and pitching the tones to get the relative effect, I begin to mass my lights and darks. I use large brushes and try to simplify my design into basic shapes and patterns, looking for connections and rhythms.