Although,  flower paintings are often not taken too seriously, they are a great subject to limber up with and making them look  natural  is something of a challenge. As they have an obvious natural beauty, and wonderful depths of tone and colour, the task is to convey this within the limited range that the materials have to offer. Their ephemeral quality and tendency to sag  after a day or two makes it essential to  capture  their  qualities in one sitting. I like to  paint them 20″ x 24″ and getting  paint on fast involves concentration and usually a fair amount of collateral damage to the  surroundings they are painted it. No time to clean up as one goes a long. No time to put lids on paint and when the palette gets  full you simply drop it and pick up another.