A friend of mine asked me to do a sunny, happy picture for the room where she does positivity training and life coaching. I prefer slightly gloomy, wistful scenes (more of which later) so this was a bit of a challenge for me but she was adamant the flowers couldn’t be dying (not even ever so slightly!) so I decided to give it a go in oils.
Because I saw it as just a bit of fun I completed it in three sittings and used bright, opaque pigments. At the end of session two I stood back, quite pleased and then realised I had made a perfectly adequate advert for sunflower spread. The slightly abstract swirl into the blue sky that I had intended to express freedom and sunshine now looked suspiciously like margarine.
For session three I added some hints of brown into the petals (purely to stop it looking like an advert and nothing to do with my need to paint decay, honest gov!)
My friend was delighted though, so all’s well.
Erica Madelin 