What happens when you stop saving your beautiful painted papers for “the right project” and simply start playing? In this studio experiment, I create a series of small abstract collages on wood panels, exploring intuition, composition, colour and the joy of making without pressure.

In this post, I share the completed results of my first large-scale acrylic and mixed media paintings on wood panel. It's been both challenging and exhilarating to scale up my contemporary botanical painting. Inspired by wildflowers, seed heads and shifting coastal light, I reflect on process, materials and the joy of letting paintings grow intuitively from layered colour, texture and mark-making.

Over the cold winter months, I’ve been exploring mixed media botanical drawing as a way to capture the vibrant forms of garden flowers. Using a combination of charcoal, coloured pastels, ink washes, and collage, I’ve been able to carve out delicate flower shapes while keeping a sense of depth and context in the background. This approach allows me to study each bloom closely and experiment with colour, light, and texture in ways that traditional methods sometimes can’t.