Scaling up….at last!

Why now?

Since my last blog where I shared some photographs of willow herb, I have been painting those same plants over and over again.  Actually, to be more accurate I have drawn the outlines then painted them. I have loved it. The mixture of line and painting is interesting. The colours are fabulous. I have gone more exaggerated in terms of colour saturation than ever in some of the paintings. But for me the most exciting thing is after working small - 12x12inch  - during spring, I have gone up first to 20x20 inch, then to 24x24, then to 36x36 inches. I have wanted to do that scaling up thing on my looking closer series of flower paintings for a long time, but it never felt quite right until a couple of weeks ago.

I have made a leap forward. The scaled-up works aren’t perfect, but they are impactful, and I like them a lot. When all my willow herb paintings all are gathered together and hung up being near them feels a bit like being a bee flying around looking for a landing place, or perhaps sitting in the middle of a clump of willow herb with your face right next to the flowers. The group feels like a Scottish July day.  What I notice is that images of that size look fantastic in my living room where there is lots of wall space. I wonder what a truly massive wall mural of willow herbs would look like. Maybe I will get a chance try that at some point in the future. At the moment my studio space won’t allow me to go much bigger.

What is the largest painting you have ever made?  I’d love to know.