Tricky not to get too involved in the detail on this one, again, i’m loving the shadows on the petals and those spirally tendrils. interesting background - makes it feel kinda breezy!

Anemones - Process shots

A teacher of mine used to say “How are you going to make that line interesting?” Funny how certain phrases stay with you!

Note the change of background as I changed my mind as to what to do with it! It’s important to remain fluid and let the painting inform what happens next.

I love the shadows of the stamen on the petals on this one. 

These ones look like I’ve just gone ‘Swish-swash-swoosh-done’ (that’s the painting equivalent of ‘bish-bash-bosh’!) but I assure you each mark was placed carefully and in a very deliberate way.

Japanese Anemones, process shots. I’m not feeling this painting for some reason.

Japanese Anemones, more freehand this time.

Sometimes in art you dance around an idea for a while then suddenly it becomes consolidated and you get quite excited by the possibilities... 

I loved having the hot pink as my background colour and keeping bits of it peaking through the flowers.

I’ve always loved hot pink ever since I was 11 when my mum bought me a brand new batwing sleeved coat in that colour! I’m probably too old to wear hot pink now- but I still do!

The challenging thing about painting the same thing everyday is that you are forced to rethink it/ reinvent it/ change things up in some way. My next thought is to use the little squares from the vase as a pattern in the background too.

Time to ramp it up again with a highly contrasting background to show up those lovely curls on the petals.  The vase - whilst decorative, was actually almost hidden against the background so I felt I achieved contrast and subtlety.

Process shots

I can’t think of a better excuse to finish a bottle of gin - can you??The gin bottle was perfect for holding the stem vertically and allowing me to paint the flowers in profile.

Process shots

Now that the flowers have started opening I had to reduce the number of stems in order to simplify the composition.

Process Shots

I decided to use a limited palette here and try to emphasise the lime and turquoise.

Process shots