I’ve never painted on a piece of timber. No, I lie. I did paint you could say a bit of a fairy tale a Russian one at that on a round timber plate when I was about twelve years old. I took lessons from a fantastic artist who was Russian, had been a sailor when he was younger and I took lessons in art from this person. He was the one who encouraged me to travel and see the world and to paint. Very happy memories.
But back to now I was encouraged to enter a competition with ArtSHINE Gallery in Chippendale. Artists were given a 30 x 30 cm timber board and could paint any subject. What to paint? I nearly didn’t enter because I wasn’t sure about the subject or the timber surface. But after visiting a plant nursery I came across these gorgeous flowers – and suddenly I was inspired to paint.
Initially I tried to do watercolour, but found the timber absorbed the paint quickly and it wasn’t giving me the effect I wanted. So I switched to acrylic. Much better. Again at first I was going to leave the timber coming through as the background but started feeling it wasn’t quite finished.
So after a lot of thought. Amazing how your mind keeps on swirling with ideas when you’re going to bed. Suddenly I had a eureka moment and realised the background needed a strong color. It was going to be a Chinese red but I changed my mind and was happy in the end with this bright and fresh blue instead. So voila!
