Delicate Lives

Delicate Lives
Acrylic on board
5" x 7" (12.7 x 17.8 cms)
Price : $100
(includes postage and packaging)

I have a lovely big yellow silk Poppy which, together with its scarlet red mate, they stand on long stalks in an attractive long-necked frosted German wine bottle. (The wine was excellent too - enjoyed at the opening night of my 'Walkin' On Sunshine' exhibition in Dublin this last August). The Poppies were bought to brighten a dull corner in my gallery (which is in the large and well-lit hallway of my home) and to enhance the colours of nearby paintings - but they begged to be painted as well.

The painting is delicate yet well-defined - and was jolly difficult to edit after scanning, to get it to as close to the real colours as possible! The flower was painted dry but the background has water added to it to give it a feeling of fluid blue sky.

Blue sky is probably something we will only glimpse on lovely autumn and winter days for the next few months. We've had lovely, heavy, soaking rain (and a bit of wind) for the past couple of days - waterfalls on the mountains are just everywhere. When the sun pushes through banks of clouds it picks out the rusts and yellow-greens on the hillsides - but is gone very quickly with fast moving clouds at the moment. Still, it's very beautiful ... this, and winter, is my time of year!