Wednesday 7 February 2018

New work // old work

 A few weeks ago a huge, beautiful bouquet of yellow tulips arrived at the door - a cheery post-xmas gift from my husband's uncle in the US.


Anyone who has known me for any length of time knows that yellow tulips are my all-time favourite flower. I have recently been looking through some old sketchbooks for inspiration from my various flower sketches. This crayon and graphite sketch depicts a bouquet in front of one of my abstracted yellow tulip paintings. The sketch is from 1982.


Another sketch from 1982 of the same bouquet in front of another abstracted yellow tulip painting. I remember perfectly well that the dining nook in my apartment in 1982 (in Scarborough, Canada) had three wall spaces, each of which had a large abstracted yellow tulip painting on it! The vase that the tulips are set in is also my work, a ceramic slab wrap-around vase.


It was either in 1981 or 1982 that I began drawing and painting flowers with a vengeance. This particular pastel and graphite sketch is of a bouquet that a friend gave me after my wisdom teeth were removed. One of the four teeth was impacted, so I was laid up for at least a week.


This is a crayon and graphite sketch of a close-up of a really vibrant red tulip from that same period (more than 30 years ago!). The great thing about having all these flower drawings is that they provide references for the glaze paintings I have begun on ceramic tiles. The recent bouquet of tulips arrived in a gorgeous, simple white glazed ceramic vase. I am planning to do a glaze painting on that in the near future.





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