Perfect Partners

Going through my reference photos for the millionth time, a photo I took at Longleat House caught my eye.  I don't know why something that I've previously passed over suddenly shouts "Paint me!", but it happens all the time, maybe as my style evolves I become more adept at adapting promising references into good paintings?

This time it was a photo of a herbaceous border with red poppies and purple allium, I played with a few different compositions in thumbnail sketches and finally decided to have the poppies in the foreground with a diagonal sweep, and alliums in the background.

Perfect Partners
Watercolour, 15" x 11"

Is it an allium?

I have some of these bulbs in my garden and I'm pretty sure that when I bought them they weren't labelled as allium, not sure what they were called though. Anyway, this is the start of a new watercolour based on a photo I took in my friend Janet Thomas' beautiful garden last summer. This is only a small section of the whole composition.


There's a long way to go yet, hopefully I'll get most of the little florets finished tomorrow!