© Copyright Shani Wray-Jenkins 2023
If you’ve ever grown wallflowers, you’ll know that they seed themselves very easily around the garden, so you’re always being surprised by their appearance in strange places. I couldn’t resist painting their gloriously deep, velvety-reds ‘en plein air’ when they grew outside my greenhouse.
NOTE: The original painting is on show at the moment, and is available through Fox Yard Studios, Stowmarket, Suffolk, UK. You can contact them directly on info@foxyardstudio.art
Also available to order as a custom-made larger print on canvas. Scroll to see in-situ images (the blue/grey image is the original size, the other 2 images are large print examples.) Please contact me directly to order your unique size and price.
The delightful Sysyrinchiums that grow in my garden were given to me by the head gardener of a stately home nearby. Truth be told, I was about to try and steal one when the gardener came in sight, so I braved asking him if I could have one – and he kindly gave me a couple of plants.
They are like bright sentinels amongst the dark greens with their long thin spires of tiny yellow flowers. I loved paintings them.
I was so thrilled with my first (smaller) en plein air painting of these lush, red velvet wallflowers that I decided to go to town and paint them BIG!
The result is rather stunning statement painting and brought me great joy in the making! Look closely at the layering in the background. You’ll see a variety of amazing crackle textures, impasto paint layers and energetic oil pastel marks that will keep you coming back for more.
If you love the profusion of rich, ruby reds as much as me, then I think you’ll love ‘Wild About Wallflowers’.
When I’d finished painting this, an artist friend said that it made her feel like she was laying down in a fragrant wildflower meadow, which made me supremely happy for some reason. Maybe it’s that feeling of complete freedom and joy that such an act can bring. And that is exactly how I wanted to feel when painting it, totally free to create the illusion of flowers with my brushes loaded with lush, creamy paint.
If this flower painting puts you in the same joyous mood, then I have succeeded … and that makes me even happier!
My flower borders are often overflowing towards wildness, with hardly an inch of room between the different blooms. But I like it like that. Maybe you do too? This painting is inspired by the stately flags, the blousy roses and the sneaky wallflowers all jostling for space.
NOTE: The original painting is on show at the moment, and is available through Fox Yard Studios, Stowmarket, Suffolk, UK. You can contact them directly on info@foxyardstudio.art
Also available to order as a custom-made larger print on canvas. Scroll to see in-situ images (the blue wall image is the original size, the office image is a larger print example shown 60 x 60cm.) Please contact me directly to order your unique size and price.
Whilst trying out a new limited colour palette, these beauties popped into my mind. They are one of those flowers that can sometimes raise their glorious heads above the rest of the borders and take me by surprise. I was trying to remember their name and a friend said “Why, they’re ‘angry panthers’ which really tickled me. Do you have nicknames for your favourite flowers?
A few weeks later, I was in Guernsey in July, and was blown away by the profusion of ‘angry panthers’ growing there in almost every garden, and even out on the cliff tops, growing wild. Wow!
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© Copyright Shani Wray-Jenkins 2023