Carved In Pink Serenity

I had a vision of how I wanted to paint these flowers, in soft colours and done in a modern abstract way so as to describe them without painting every last detail.

But I had no canvas. So I decided to look around my studio and see if there were any incomplete paintings that could be painted over to reuse a canvas.

I had some molding paste which I used to cover the previous painting.

Then I began photographing and sketching the bouquet of flowers, making sure I did this no later than 2 days after receiving them, while they were nice and fresh.

I was so happy with my sketches. I have chosen the ones I loved the best to include in this painting. Then I began to transfer the drawings onto the canvas and started adding texture to them, to give the painting a real 3D effect.

I then became totally overwhelmed with how I was going to paint into the texturing, how was I going to go about it? I knew it had to be done right.

These weren't any flowers, they had been given to me as a total surprise for my birthday. They weren't only a huge surprise, but also the best flowers I had ever received because of the size, type and colours. They were sent to me from my Mother. The thing that was so special is that my Mother is old now, and I knew that there wouldn’t be many more years in which she would be able to do this so these became very important to me. I studied videos time and time again, in order to perfect my technique of exactly how I was going to paint this textured painting, as I was trying a totally new style. Then I began painting into the textured flowers, bit by bit, layer by layer. Still not convinced I went off and did something else for a while. On my return I realised that it was totally ok, and actually one of my best paintings to date. I felt that I had not only achieved the look I was going for, but actually mastered the technique I was learning.