I started painting florals as a way to practice painting with a forgiving subject – it is easy to make adjustments and hide mistakes in the fluid shapes of petals and leaves. Soon they became a way to explore compositional styles and color palettes influenced by East Asian art, specifically soapstone plaques and brightly painted vases.
My florals usually start with an impromptu photograph of a plant I’ve encountered while out and about – on a walk, on vacation, or even while intentionally visiting a garden or greenhouse. I met these hibiscus blooms during a 2022 trip to Wolf Trap in Virginia for a concert. From there, I’ll use photo editing software (or even simple cropping tools on my phone) to land on the image that gets transferred to the canvas and rendered out.
