Meconopsis (working title), Acrylic on panel, 60 x 70 cm, 2020

This painting started as a commission from a dear friend in London. My pal Mark had been to the Chelsea flower show and seen an amazing display of Meconopsis from a Scottish nursery. Mark himself is Scottish and he spoke to me about a painting including these flowers for his home in London.

Mark’s living room is a lovely, big light room, with a wide, south facing bay window and lots of wonderful art and furnishings. The walls are painting very dark so the painting needed to keep all that in mind. This is actually the third attempt at the piece, as the first versions floundered once I started painting in the blue of the poppies. I learnt quickly that the blue was difficult to match, and when I mentioned this to one or two gardener friends they told me that it was also difficult to include in a  planting scheme for the same reason!  But they were an essential part of the panting so I had to press on.

After the second attempt failed I started looking at Cedric Morris, an artist famous for painting flowers and, in particular, irises. I noticed he often used a warm background so I tried this and things started to work out. The warm background then suggested other plants to go with the poppies; pale yellow and black irises, lilies and trollius.

As the painting developed, some flowers grew, bloomed and then died as they got painted out, and others emerged and took centre stage. I learned a lot doing this painting and I’m keen to do more flower paintings like this, I find flowers endlessly fascinating, I could get lost in them!