The leaves in this painting are mostly dark and silhouetted against a light background. The background areas will be quite small so that they do not compete with the flowers which will be in sunlight dimensionally in front of the leaves.
I chose to do this so that the cup and saucer will not be too camouflaged against the 'busy' background. I want to emphasise the dimension so that the cup will also have the effect of being in amongst the foliage, and not just 'floating' in front or superimposed on top. We shall see when it is complete if I have been successful or not!