First of all I hope that everyone able to follow my blog had a very peaceful Christmas. Thank you for your interest in my work over recent months. I hope that it has encouraged your own botanical art involvement.

I have been quiet for a while as I have been so completely engaged in the UK preparations of the Botanical Art Worldwide Exhibition  opening 18 May 2018. But during relatively quiet moments I have been working on my next painting for the Benton Irises Florilegium.

Today, has been one such day. Although we have family visiting over Christmas and more due over the New Year Period, I managed to work a little on the composition of the Benton Iris Farewell.

This is an absolutely stunning Iris which at first glance is white with reddy-brown falls. But when taking a second look, white does not describe it. The Iris seems to pick up all the colours of the rainbow!

I now have several plants in my garden and in the spring made full use of all the days I could sit out in the sun and sketch it. These are some of my preparatory sketches.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Today I worked on the composition and it is completely different to that which I had anticipated. I had already scanned my sketches and moved the different parts around on my computer screen after having worked out where my Golden section and area of focus was likely to be. From this exercise I thought I had a rough idea of what I wanted to do, so started sketching it.

This is my rough layout. Where do you think the area of focus is? Is it in a Golden section? Is the eye lead around the composition?

Colours will also influence the final composition as will weight of the various elements.

I hope to keep you up to date with how the painting develops, but that is dependent upon the amount of work with the Worldwide exhibition. Do look at www.britishbotanicalartists.com.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

2018