Irregular Rhythm Among the Flowers (Challenge #216)
Here in Europe, and across much of North America, autumn is well underway. The days are getting shorter, the skies are often grey, and the bright colours of summer are gradually disappearing from our landscapes.
So when I saw these beautiful photographs from Ida, our co-host @walkingnewzealand, I immediately thought: this is exactly what we need for our next challenge! A little sunshine, a lot of greenery, and some wonderfully bright flowers to bring colour back to our painting tables.
This week, we're travelling to Puhinui Stream in South Auckland, New Zealand, where Ida photographed a peaceful woodland filled with flowering Clivias.
Clivias thrive in shaded conditions, which makes them particularly interesting subjects in this lush environment. Tall trees filter the sunlight, large leaves overlap in the understory, and generous clusters of orange, red and yellow flowers brighten the predominantly green landscape.
What caught my attention wasn't simply the beautiful flowers. It was the irregular rhythm of these bright colour accents against all the surrounding greenery. The flowers appear here and there, sometimes in large clusters, sometimes in smaller groups, with quiet spaces of green between them. They seem to invite our eyes to move through the landscape, discovering one colourful accent after another. That's exactly what I'd like us to explore in Challenge 216.
Focus Point: Irregular Rhythm
When we think about rhythm, we often imagine something regular: a repeated beat, an evenly spaced pattern or a sequence of similar shapes. But rhythm in nature rarely works that way.
In landscape painting, irregular rhythm is created when visual elements repeat with variations in their size, spacing, shape, colour or direction.
Think about a group of trees growing at different distances from one another, patches of sunlight scattered across a field, or flowers appearing in uneven clusters among the foliage. We recognise the repetition, but we can't predict exactly where the next element will appear. And that's what makes the composition interesting.
In this week's photographs, the Clivias create a rhythm through their bright colours. Orange, red and yellow flower heads stand out against the darker greens, attracting our attention and encouraging our eyes to move from one cluster to another. However, not every flower needs to be equally important.
If we give every cluster the same size, intensity and detail, the composition may become too busy or decorative. If we remove too many flowers, we might lose the rhythm that makes the scene so appealing.
The challenge is to find a balance between repetition, variation and visual pauses. Remember, we're not trying to reproduce every plant exactly as it appears in the photograph. We're learning to recognise the visual relationships that make the landscape interesting.
For a deeper explanation, I recommend reading my previous post on irregular rhythm, where we explore how repetition with variation can bring movement and unity into a composition.
Photo Analysis
Let's look at the four references and explore how the repeated flower clusters, changing colours and surrounding greenery can help us create irregular rhythm in our paintings.
Photo 1: A Path Through the Clivias
This photo invites us into a lush woodland garden. A narrow, curving path leads through generous clusters of pale yellow Clivias, while tall trees and arching leaves create a beautiful sense of shelter. A small dog running along the path and a person farther away add life and a sense of scale.
What I find especially interesting is how the flower clusters appear on both sides of the path, creating a sequence of warm accents that continues into the distance.
Challenge as a Photo
There is a lot happening here: overlapping leaves, tree trunks, scattered sunlight, flowers, the winding path and two living subjects. If we try to paint everything with equal attention, we risk losing the lovely rhythm of the yellow flowers and the inviting movement of the path.
Focus Questions
How do the yellow flower clusters guide your eye along the path?
Which clusters could you simplify or combine to create a clearer rhythm?
Would you keep the dog and the person, or would the painting work better without one or both?
Painting Tips
Establish the curving path first to organise the surrounding vegetation.
Group the yellow flowers into larger accents instead of painting every blossom.
Give foreground clusters stronger colour and clearer shapes than distant ones.
Preserve quiet green areas between the flowers to strengthen their rhythm.
Photo 2: Orange and Red Among the Greenery
Here the flowers become the main attraction. Bright orange and red Clivias appear in generous clusters across the foreground and middle distance. Their long, dark green leaves form sweeping shapes beneath the blossoms, while palms, tree trunks and dense foliage create a richly layered background. Unlike the first reference, there is no obvious path to guide us through the scene. Instead, the repeated flower clusters become our visual guide.
Challenge as a Photo
The abundance of bright flowers is both the beauty and the difficulty of this reference.
When so many accents compete for attention, it can be hard to establish a clear focal point. We need to decide which flower groups should dominate and which should play a supporting role.
Focus Questions
Which cluster would you choose as the main focal point?
Can you identify a rhythm that connects the foreground flowers with those farther back?
What would happen if you reduced the intensity of some orange and red accents?
Painting Tips
Choose one dominant flower cluster and give it the strongest contrast or detail.
Vary the size, intensity and spacing of the surrounding colour accents.
Simplify overlapping leaves into larger dark green shapes.
Leave some quieter areas of foliage between the brightest flowers.
Photo 3: Colour Among the Trees
This photo combines the repeated vertical shapes of tree trunks with Clivia flowers in several shades of orange and yellow. A large group of orange blossoms fills the lower foreground, while smaller clusters appear farther into the woodland. The grassy ground and tree trunks create a relatively open setting, allowing the flower groups to stand out as individual accents.
I particularly like how this photograph offers two different kinds of rhythm: the vertical repetition of the trees and the irregular distribution of colourful flowers.
Challenge as a Photo
The trees could easily become too dominant if we paint every trunk with the same contrast and detail. At the same time, the many flower clusters could feel disconnected unless we establish a relationship between them. The challenge is to make these two rhythms work together rather than compete.
Focus Questions
How does the rhythm of the tree trunks differ from the rhythm of the flowers?
Can the large orange foreground cluster lead the eye towards the smaller groups behind it?
Which tree trunks could be softened or omitted to give the flowers more importance?
Painting Tips
Use the large foreground flowers to establish a clear point of interest.
Preserve variations in tree spacing instead of making the trunks evenly arranged.
Suggest distant flower clusters with simple patches of colour.
Soften less important tree trunks to keep attention on the flowers.
Photo 4: One Bright Cluster, Many Quiet Echoes
The final photo gives us a beautiful close view of a large orange Clivia cluster in the foreground. Behind it, smaller groups of orange and yellow flowers appear among the trees. The ground is covered with grasses and fallen leaves, while vertical trunks and darker woodland shapes establish the background. Compared with the other references, this composition offers a particularly clear opportunity to explore how one strong element can be repeated more quietly throughout a painting.
Challenge as a Photo
The foreground flowers are so vivid and prominent that they could easily become isolated from the rest of the composition. Our task is to connect this dominant cluster with the smaller flower accents behind it, creating a visual rhythm that carries the viewer deeper into the woodland.
Focus Questions
How can the smaller flower groups echo the large foreground cluster without competing with it?
Would simplifying the background make the rhythm more noticeable?
How much detail does the foreground flower need to remain the main point of interest?
Painting Tips
Keep the strongest colour, contrast and detail in the foreground Clivia cluster.
Repeat smaller touches of orange and yellow to connect foreground and background.
Simplify background trees into supporting vertical shapes.
Use softer edges and less detail for the distant flower accents.
I hope these colourful Clivias bring a little brightness to your painting table, especially if you're looking out at grey autumn skies. Choose the reference that inspires you most, but remember that you don't need to copy every flower or leaf exactly as it appears. Experiment with grouping, simplifying and rearranging the colourful accents until you find a rhythm that feels right for your painting. Most importantly, enjoy discovering how repetition and variation can transform a busy woodland scene into a composition with its own sense of movement.
Challenge 216 runs until Monday, 9 November 2026, at 12:00 CET. Share your interpretation on Instagram using #LandscapeArtClub216 and invite @landscapeartclub as a collaborator or tag us for a chance to be featured.
And if you'd like to practise irregular rhythm with other subjects, explore the flowers and forest categories in our Reference Library. Look for repeating blossoms, trees, patches of sunlight or colour accents, and experiment with making their arrangement your own.
Happy Painting!
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