Chasing the Light: flower paintings that glow
- 6 hours ago
- 5 min read
In the studio at the moment, I have a number of painting and drawing projects on the go, all with a floral theme. This is not just about rendering realistic flowers, although that is important for understanding their form and structure, but about finding a way to capture their iridescent colours in the sunlight against a complex backdrop of foliage and landscape. To me, this subject has a feeling of transcendence: the exquisite beauty of flowers in the light seems to convey joy, hope, and a longed-for paradise — something that makes your breath catch in your throat.
But it's not easy to capture that feeling in paint! I'm aiming for a kind of visual poetry, but I'm on a long journey with many twists and turns. The goal always seems just out of reach.
I've tried a number of different approaches to painting flowers that seem to glow with colour. I began with watercolour, which is well known for its translucency. The colours are clear, allowing light to bounce back from the white paper through the pigment, so they appear fresh and bright. But then I came up against the problem of painting the background around the flower. Yes, you can use masking fluid, but that method didn't offer the fluidity of working that I enjoy.
Painting the background first gives freedom of movement in the marks, but when you paint bright colours over the top, they fall flat. You add more and more paint, yet the colours never look fresh and translucent. I've been working with collage for a while, painting sheets of thin paper and then gluing them onto a painted background. This creates amazing colour contrasts, and I like the decisiveness of cutting out the shapes. It's fantastic for achieving clean, crisp forms, but now I wanted something softer to complement that.
My latest approach is to paint a brightly coloured background and then paint over it with more opaque colours, lifting areas out to reveal the bright underlying colour, much as I would with a monotype. I'm only just beginning to explore this technique, but I think it has a lot of promise for creating more luminous colours and a stronger sense of natural sunlight.
This first painting (top of page) explores that idea. It also introduces a compositional element: a simple division of the painting into two unequal parts to suggest a landscape structure. To be honest, I began this one with the sea in mind, but as it developed, it seemed more like a lake or pond, so I leaned into that vibe and ended up with this.
This slideshow shows the progress of the painting, with each photograph showing how it looked at the end of the day.
Paintings have their own character, and in the dialogue between artist and painting, the painting often seems to have the upper hand and know what it wants to become better than the artist does! I've spoken to many artists who have had the same experience. Very strange!
The painting and drawing methods I've developed over the last few years are unique to me and to what I'm hoping to achieve. This constant innovation and development lie at the heart of my creative practice. Louise Fletcher, in her recent blog post, said this: "Anyone can learn a technique. The harder task is discovering a process that feels like an extension of your own mind, your own history, your own way of seeing. When we make our own unique art in our own unique way, using methods we've discovered rather than borrowed, we feed ourselves spiritually in a way that nothing else can."
She was writing about people wanting a shortcut to a technique they can copy and use. But there's no effective substitute for undertaking your own creative voyage of discovery through experimentation, failure, and innovation.
Flaming June is based on this photograph (below) of Iceland poppies from our allotment last summer. The colours looked amazing in the late evening light. It was around this time of year, so for once I've got a seasonal picture to show you! I was really pleased with the brightness of the oranges and yellows, which seem to come closer to capturing the delicate transparency of the petals.
The painting below is a development of the Iceland poppies idea, and it still has a long way to go. I have a whole collection of collage papers that will be suitable for the large flowers. At this stage, you're just seeing the backdrop. I'll share it again when it's finished!
Who would have thought the humble dandelion would find its way into my art? I'm always trying to get it out of the garden! I took the photograph for this piece on one of my morning walks. The dandelions had grown tall and lush at the side of the road, and I was drawn to the sculptural forms of the fat buds. They have flowered and closed, ready to reopen as dandelion clocks. It's such a complex natural process, full of extraordinary forms, yet it's so common that we barely notice it.
This drawing of the tall kniphofias in our allotment is a significant milestone for me. I used the photograph on a watercolour course a few years ago and tried desperately to capture their stately forms while painting the background around them. It was a hopeless endeavour! The paintings I made were awful. I wish I could show them to you so you could witness my progress, but I tore them up! This drawing still isn't where I want it to be — an artist is never satisfied — but I have moved forward significantly since that time.
Finally, this is a very recent mixed-media drawing of daisies in which I combined acrylic inks, watercolour, and pastel to create interesting marks and surfaces that suggest depth and atmosphere. The photograph has been processed in Photoshop to help me identify the edges of the white petals.
I have so many photographs I want to work from in this way, both to improve my drawing skills and to learn more about flower and leaf forms that can feed into my larger paintings. These are improvised, imaginative works, not paintings based on any single photograph. I feel hugely ambitious to take all this to the next level and produce some large paintings that I'm truly proud of.
The completed paintings and drawings are available now - just get in touch if you're interested. Phone/text on +447717256169 or email info@rebecca-vincent.co.uk
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