Last of the spring flowers for now especially with the snow falling outside! 
These little snowdrops were still good after the previous day painting. I didn’t want to repeat the painting so changed from glass to a jug. 
I use a viewfinder for just about all my paintings still life and plein air.
Heres a pic of it:


It helps me to see what’s important in my subject, to decide on format – I have a landscape viewfinder too. I also coloured the front and back with different ground colours, see the grey one below:
The colour helps me compare with the subject to my board colour e.g How does the shadow petals of the snowdrop compare to the grey board colour?  
I also check the tones by looking through the little hole and match them to the white and black. Still looking through the hole – compare the colours to different areas of the subject.

Viewfinders are easy to make I used foam board as it’s light for carrying around, they are so helpful!

I asked on social media what people thought of the two snowdrops paintings – and the glass vase first one I did came out top which one do you prefer?