Flowers, Black Canvas

I feel a little like I'm painting on velvet (clowns?  Elvis?) because I ordered, on a whim, canvases that were pre-primed in black gesso.  Other times, I've painted gouache on black paper, I've toned canvases in dark grey, but there's something strange about going straight into black with oil paint.  Fun, strange... and a little bit velvet.

After the painting "Anniversary Flowers" sold last week, Mother's Day came and along with it, another beautiful arrangement.  It's cold outside, do I need an excuse?  I decided to paint these flowers too.  Here's the work in progress in my messy studio.

One thing about this arrangement -- you can see that it's got a pretty even height distribution across the top.  I'm going to add more flowers with height to the top.  I'm also going to play around with the background/angle that I've put in.  I think it's interesting, but the transition is too abrupt.