I seem to only ever choose flowers as subjects in the Spring. I think it is seeing the first blooms that inspires me to commit them to paper, sometimes with more success than others. When I decide on a subject, I often take a look at various tutorials and also some of my own reference books if I haven’t covered the subject previously. I no longer follow them properly because I like to paint in my own style but, I do find some of the tips invaluable. I also find that nowadays the first effort might not be what I set out to achieve but, rather than bin it, I look to see what is was that marred the effect. This year because I have so many reference photo’s I really wanted to have a go at snowdrops. I painted the first effort with a springlike feel but it didn’t work out too well. One of the problems I had was that I used photo references which had various stages of bud opening. I painted one that was very widely open and it screamed off the page as not being right.
So I learnt from this and decided whilst one or two unopened buds are ok, for art, there really does need to be a measure of consistency. I also found that with the pure white colour, spring colours were almost dull. So, I added a little drama!

One of the tutorials I read, stated that you should picture the subject in the environment, naturally in the wind and elements with movement. This statement really grabbed me. For once rather than painting vases of flowers, I was painting my own photo’s but in my mind I could see them outside…..

Perhaps, because I am more of an outdoors person, I have really loved painting flowers in their natural state much more than any still life could ever inspire me to do.

Incidentally, the inspiration in the first place was to paint a few daffodils as a card for a friend. This also went a little pear shaped as I am not so good at working small any more. However, knowing this I chopped a piece of paper down to A4.

Yes, I filled the A4 piece of paper. Now, I have big cards but not that big….so I had to go for round two. This time, I decided to cut the paper to the card size…

I got there in the end! meanwhile, I confess I am off on one. It has been a while since I followed my own whims and completed work for the heck of it! I am having fun