Flowers from the University of Bristol Botanic Garden

I have had the great privilege lately of also blogging for the University of Bristol Botanic Garden. This means that I get an opportunity to take pictures of flowers and call it work. I thought I would just do a quick post to highlight some of the flower photos I've done over the last little while. Enjoy.

Letting go...

Anthurium scherzerianum in acrylic on canvas.

Since trying to paint with a three year old under foot, I've found that I've had to change my process considerably. If my son is playing away happily by himself and there is nothing else pressing, I get out my paints. Of course, soon as he sees me he wants to be involved - so out come his paints. At first he had his own brushes, his own paints and some scrap paper. However, this wasn't good enough because it was different from what I had. So, it evolved. He now has small amounts of my paint, my older brushes and his own canvasses. It makes him happy, which makes me happy.

However, it wasn't easy. I had to let go of how I did things. A painting session with Morgan means things are messier, noisier (there's constant chatter), and usually very time restricted. While painting the background to this image, he even leaned over and decided to add a few of his own touches. AHHHH! I wasn't impressed and it was following an incident where he had just accidentally dragged his sleeve through his paint and got it all over the floor...so my anxiety was already elevated. Then I took a breath and I let it go. "Oh...good idea." I said, "I'm going to add some black to what you did and then it will look like things in the background that are out of focus." He was happy with that.

You see, in a brief moment between having the unwanted addition to my painting and before I opened my mouth to tell him off I realized a few things. First, if I yell at him this isn't going to be fun for him anymore. Second, he thought he was helping me (and maybe he did), just as I help him grab the pen and write his letters - so how can I get mad for something I do to him?  Third, it's only paint. I struggle so hard to make the image in my mind come to life on the canvas and it rarely looks exactly how I imagined in the end. So, why not embrace that rather than get frustrated about it. Let it go!

Now, just so nobody thinks I let my child run rampant...we did have a discussion about asking first before drawing on someone else's picture.

Aquilegia vulgaris

From our back garden; Aquilegia vulgaris, commonly known as columbine. I don't have much to say about this other than it felt good (and challenging) to work with watercolours again. Also, I have an all new respect for botanical artists!

Blossoms

I actually painted this a few years ago now and gave it to my dad and his wife for Christmas. It acquired a small puncture in transit, but it isn't really noticeable. It's now very nicely displayed in their house (and no, not on the back of the laundry room door). I was there this past August and I was walking along the beach outside their house early in the morning and was drawn to something very colourful out of the corner of my eye. It was this painting, catching the early morning sun in their living room. It was great!

Lily - Rediscovering art

As a child I was always drawing, colouring, sketching, modelling...you name it. Even as a teenager I still found time to be creative. However, somewhere in my '20s I lost sight of it and it wasn't until I turned 30 that I rediscovered art in my life. I was in the garden one day and was inspired by the lilies so I picked up a canvas, I picked up some acrylics and I went for it. I didn't sketch anything first, I had never used acrylics but I thought " how hard can it be?". So this is the first painting I did after a very long break from using painting as a creative outlet.