Retrospective.......

As all I am painting at the moment is potatoes (completed 72 so far....) I thought it would be nice to have a look at some old paintings of mine from a few years back. When I first came back to painting about 15 years ago, I had no idea I would be selling my work so it was all for fun and I used to find reference photographs in books and magazines and work from them. However, when my work started to sell well, I became aware that I could no longer do that in case I infringed copyright somewhere along the line, and all my paintings now are from original photographs.


This painting has a sentimental value to me - it was my first highly detailed acrylic and one of those paintings where when you finish it you can't quite believe that it was you that painted it! It's 14 years on and I can see quite a few faults that I would correct if I were to paint this now, but I hold this little picture very dear and it is on my wall at home and not for sale.


I love to paint exotic birds and these were such a pleasure - I enjoyed the shapes and colours and even picking out just enough foliage to balance the whole thing. This was painted in watercolour.


This one took a very long time - it is in watercolour and I got totally absorbed in the play of colour and texture.

Perhaps now that I am on the downhill slope with the potatoes, it won't be very long until I can return to this sort of painting. I miss it desperately!