“How did I get the idea”… a friend asked.

Katherine and Iain are art lovers. Their home is filled with beautiful colours and textures, I had previously captured their woodland garden in glass and now it was time for the flower garden and the view from a different aspect. A place where goldfinch feast on the evening primrose…

We want your paint this time..and can it be abstract they asked…

It seemed simple to me. I envisioned flashes of vibrant red and yellow amidst the chaotic hedgerow and soaring seed heads.

Small birds. Big space. So I broke the panel down into chunks fielded by the vertical lines of the cow parsley’s and evening primrose with the sweeping curves at the bottom to mimic the dark dark undergrowth.

Every ‘chunk’ I planned to do differently. Same subject different paint application. Fun fun fun with the paintbrush. And then side by side the jumbled pieces come together and make the eyes dart around the picture that is punctuated with splashes of the red and yellow. goldfinch.

Your eyes settle. And then move on. I was really satisfied by how this panel turned out.

Gentle and yet chaotically busy.

Vibrant and yet sludgily (beautifully) subdued.