Winter Blooms

on my easel

It’s supposed to be winter right now in France, but this year it looks like we’ve moved from autumn straight into spring, and this has inspired me a new painting!

In keeping with my word of the year (Focus) I’ve set myself a goal to complete some unfinished paintings that have been lying around the studio for much too long. This one started a long while ago as a wintery, snowy abstract, maybe a landscape, and then… I got stuck! But not anymore.

I loved everything about the layered background, the horizon line, the whimsical alphabet letters stamped at the bottom, the beautiful neutrals… but something wasn’t working and that was mainly because of the unusual vertical format of the canvas (16”x24” / 40x60 cm), not really ideal for a landscape.

A few weeks ago, spring blooms started to come out in the garden, and the first flowers to appear were all white: roses, snowbells, narcissi and even a few daisies. Inspiration took over and white blooms appeared on the canvas too!

I love the contrast that these winter blooms create, even though they are still in the same neutral tones as the rest of the painting. They shoot upwards, balancing the composition, and while the background is rather grungy and masculine, they add grace and feminity. They also create gentle movement and life within the wintery stillness.

What I love most is that the flowers have allowed the painting’s story to emerge. To me it evokes the way that life, beauty and grace always find their way back through the colder, darker days. They seem to emerge effortlessly but in truth, their roots run deep and they are much stronger than they look at first sight.

These blooms rise up through the snow, towards the light, high above the little “fence” of the horizon, telling us that life and love can overcome any barriers. And so the painting is titled “Love Will Find A Way”…

Hopefully in the coming weeks and months I will have plenty more art to share, as I keep going through the unfinished projects in my studio! I will also keep working in my new art journal and you can see my latest page, which is also very black-and-white, in this post. Neutral tones are calling to me more than ever right now, so this is something I will keep exploring for sure, maybe even with a new online class… stay tuned!

And to see little glimpses of what’s going on in the studio, make sure to follow me on Instagram and especially check out my Stories as I’m posting little videos there several times a week. I hope to see you there!

Light & love,

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