How to Paint a Floral Dress in Oils (Part 1)

This dress was very complicated and tedious to paint I must admit.  I should have thought about the kids' clothes when we were doing the photo shoot!  But it is one of Issy's favourite dresses, so I felt compelled to paint it anyway.

I drew in the folds only with a pencil because it would be too hard to accurately draw the pattern of the dress.  The pattern is from a watercolour, which is in a very loose style, which makes it easier to copy. 

So I started with one colour at a time and proceeded to paint the flowers and leaves in roughly the right place.  They didn't have to be exactly the same as the photo.  I think the main idea here is to end up with a pretty dress in similar colours.