Painting from Life – Exploring your Garden, the plants and the light

During lock down, like most people who were lucky enough to have a garden, we spent a lot of time in ours and as I was shielding and couldn’t get to my studio, my garden became my studio and inspiration.

It is so easy to get into the habit of painting from 2D reference particularly when the weather isn’t good and forget that looking at the world in 3D is essential, as photographs only ever tell us part of the story and invariably distort our view of the world into one that is flat and not as rich and 3 dimensional as it should be. Our brains I think start seeing the world as a jigsaw not a thing that you can walk around and through.

I am usually at Chelsea Flower Show in May, which in the past has dictated so much of my year, in terms of what I paint, but also all the time it takes to organise all the added logistics and preparation for having a stand there. So it is not surprising that my garden gets rather neglected and I often return and feel rather dismayed to discover a jungle at home, after seeing the best of the best when it comes to garden design at Chelsea Flower Show.

So last year and this has been an opportunity (which I am trying to maintain) to study my own garden and really get to know more plants and also to appreciate it over many months.

Looking at What is Under Your Nose

– Start Small

I decided to really study plants as they actually came up in my garden one by one, in particular my Iris Collection, but also plants that I don’t often paint, because they are rather more transient and by the time they have flowered and then I have decided to paint them, they have died!

So I learnt the order in which my plants flowered, and how often the taller ones come earlier and the shorter thicker stemmed ones come later.

I started by painting my tulips on sennelier pastel sand card, just doing small studies, as often when you start something new and particularly when I venture to paint plein air, I have to get into the swing of it and almost limber up!

I just accept that the first few studies won’t be any good but they are a necessary evil to getting to somewhere more fruitful. The trick is to accept this and not be too hard on yourself.

The beauty of working small is also that you don’t have to worry about ruining large pieces of paper.

 – The Beauty in Repetition

I know that this is probably a very boring thing to say but there is nothing that beats painting the same subject MANY times as it really does have its rewards and is a very mindful thing to do. I have painted many hundred of irises and tulips, everyone is different and with everyone I learn something new, especially if I paint them from life. Here are some of my Iris collection that then led to the larger painting at the beginning of this blog, as it was only when I saw all the smaller paintings together on the wall in my studio that then the idea for the larger painting arose. The more you do the more ideas will arrive like welcome rewards for your efforts.

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– Mix it Up a Bit

I love change and sometimes it is not until you actually look at a body of your work all together that you see what is glaringly obvious to other people.  Such as the fact that you are working in exactly the same colour palette all the time or as in my case, I realised that I needed to mix up the point of view, that I was looking at plants from. All my studies tended to have flowers coming up from the bottom of the picture, which meant they looked quite static and almost like a botanical catalogue.

I wanted things to look more organic and less rigid and not shout ’here’s this specimen!’. I had played around with painting plants from different perspectives before, when I was Artist in Residence at RHS Harlow Carr for a year in Harrogate. So I decided to pick flowers and then arrange them in small jugs and bottles and only look at them from above, so that you couldn’t see the stalks and they almost flowed across the page. This reflected the informal nature of my garden and meant that my work looked less formal. These two pieces below are done on board painted with Art Spectrum Colourfix primer that I have tinted with liquid acrylic, so that’s how I managed to get that nice blue back ground. I also tend to under-paint with the pastel primer and then work over the top with unison pastels to produce the depth of colour and texture.

– Photography Library of Reference for the Winter

As well as painting so many of the flowers in my garden from life, I also have been picking flowers every month and then arranging them in different ways and also experimenting with different backgrounds when I photograph them, to explore composition and to look at flowers in different lighting conditions.

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So I am not saying not to take photographs but just to be more aware of why and how you take them as a source of reference.

– Working outside brings its own inspirational moments

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I loved these flowers in bottles glistening in this gorgeous ‘end of day light’, on a potting bench I had built and was about to move. It was just by a tree, in the garden and the light was coming through the leaves and created a wonderful dance of shadows, that of course was only fleeting, but that will be a delight to paint in the winter as a memory of brighter months. Most of these flowers would also not have lasted long enough for me to paint them, as, as soon as they are picked they tend to flop.

– Experiencing the Elements makes for better paintings

Being in my garden and picking and arranging plants, sparks off ideas and again allows me to try out new things before I paint them. The more I am in my garden the more I want my paintings to flow and reflect the true nature of the plants e.g. that they are waving in the wind or heavy with fruit. It is only by actually seeing plants close up and being out in the elements with them, that those extra dimensions can come across into your work.

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Visual Diary of my Garden

Knowing your plants better in terms of structure but also when they flower and how strong they are, all this information goes into your head and effects how carefully you paint them and how heavily you press. It is invaluable in creating a greater knowledge of plants that will help you be a better Artist.  Creating your own diary of your garden through sketching, doing paintings outside and taking photos that you have composed all of this is very helpful going into the winter months when there is not so much to paint in the garden, I use it as a library of reference and a bank of inspiration to keep me going on dull days.