flowers, flowers, flowers . . .

During my recent watercolour frenzy I decided to make a flower painting based on an exercise in one of the art mags I subscribe to - not my usual style at all, but I thought it would be worth a go.  The subject was pink geraniums in a vase, so I turned them into red geraniums in a pot, which resulted in this:

geraniums in a pot
original watercolour by Teresa Newham

Good enough, I thought, to make into a greetings card, or mount up for Herts Open Studios!  so ideally I needed a couple of similar paintings to go with it.   Taking a vase of sunflowers off the dining room table, I laid down some initial washes:

early washes for 'sunflowers in a jug'
© Teresa Newham

And, using a similar set of processes, turned them into this - which is arguably more my style:

sunflowers in a jug
original watercolour by Teresa Newham

 For my third flower painting, I started out with a rough idea based on a photo I'd taken earlier in the Summer.  I had no idea where this one was going . . . :

early washes for 'poppy meadow'
© Teresa Newham

. . . .and it ended up as a rather abstract rendition of some poppies!

poppy meadow
original watercolour by Teresa Newham

Which also works cropped down for the greetings card:

'poppy meadow' cropped for a greetings card
© Teresa Newham

It was great fun to experiment in this way, and I ended up with three mounted pieces and designs for three greetings cards - not bad for a few days' work!