Throughout last Autumn and Spring I have been planning out my garden with the intent of growing specific flowers to use for a new series of still life paintings. Not all went to plan as some of the flowers decided to be red not pink, white not blue and and some decided to not come up at all. We have had so much run this year that flowers although bloomed, soon became disheveled and dropped.
The red poppies that where supposed to be pink, was one of these unexpected surprises and it took me a while for them to win me over. They were the first flowers I saw from my bedroom window and became a cheery sight to see when there was no blue sky and other plants lay dormant. I picked a few and popped them in a vase, I was surprised how well they lasted in the vase, their vibrant yellow stamens, heavily loaded with pollen and post box red petals finally won me over and I have been experimenting with them.
I’m really happy with how the painting turned out, however I wished I had moved the little bust facing towards the vase. I was thinking he was looking out to sea….but it doesn’t really transfer across. Oh. well, this one is for me anyway and was all about the joy of painting and what I can learn from my flowers!