Echoes Of Spring
2015
I started my painting career as a Botanical artist. That was a time when every single detail in every painting was extremely important to me. I would laboriously spend hours adding each tiny piece of information to create to perfection. There are times when I work now that the " botanical monster" inside of me demands to be unleashed. And I often don't notice it happening. But it did on this daffodil painting. I almost got happily carried away with delight as each new intricate brush stroke touched the paper with colour.
The loose, free, impressionistic daffodils of yesterdays painting session played on my mind this morning and so I returned to the Spring subject. But the sunshine from my previous painting time was missing and the light was very different. I chose a clump of a different variety of daffodils to paint that were smaller and less yellow. As I worked I became fascinated by the trumpets of each bloom rather than the sense of movement in yesterdays spontaneous composition. And before I knew it detail started to appear around petal edges, and of course on the glorious trumpets that my attention rarely strayed from.
Mood effects our work so often too. Interestingly as Monday is my admin day I was giving more focus to detail. Monday is a day set aside for planning, working on tours and book signing events for the year ahead. It is also always a busy day replying to many emails, often accepting or discussing date options for requested bookings. But no matter what, I always make time to paint because otherwise I just cannot settle!
Close up section from
Echoes of Spring
The shadow under the central petal plays a part in adding drama to this simple flower portrait. A shadow I would have missed had I not been painting from life and observing my chosen subject.
I'm wondering how many daffodil paintings will appear before I tire of capturing them in watercolour!
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