FLOWERS IN THE SPRING

I painted these flower paintings in the spring after walking through Weston Park here in Sheffield.

I love the spring, everything is fresh and new.

I forgot to publish the accompanying blog post (or did I?) so I'll post the paintings anyhow with some new text about how brill flowers are and why they are so good to paint and now we're in the deep mid winter, a bit of spring time colour.

"Most people in the city rush around, so they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not" ~ Georgia O'Keeffe

"I hate flowers - I paint them because they're cheaper than models and they don't move" ~ Georgia O'Keeffe

I love painting flowers  for a number of reasons. There's the colours of course, the shapes of the petals, the middle bits of the flower and stems.
I buy a bunch of flowers that catch my eye from the supermarket, usually when they're reduced in price, bring them home and set them up in a corner of the studio. 
I'll then get spotlights on them to emphasize the shadows to create new shapes in the background.
I'll work on 6 to 10 paintings in sequence at a time, painting quickly on each one for a few minutes so by the time I get back to the first one, it's pretty dry and I can work over and into it again and so the process goes on till I've got maybe 5 or 6 paintings I'm happy with.
I love working like this as I can can try out new ways of using paint. Splashing, diluted paint, textured paint, brushes, palette knives, sticks, cardboard, kitchen roll, fingers, anything that comes to hand really.

Painting flowers reminds me of an early lesson I learned from one of my teachers: if it's right but looks wrong, it's wrong, if it's wrong but looks right, it's right.