WIP Magnolia

Wandering around our garden today, I spotted we still had one or two magnolia flowers on our tree which actually has its main blooms in March!

Anyone who has followed my blog will know that it has been very quiet recently...no excuses, but suffice to say that seeing these lone flowers on the tree and a conversation about blogging I had with my son’s business partner over the weekend  prompted me to put some effort in and “get back to it!”

Magnolias are one of my favourite flowers and the tree I have in my garden was one I bought for my Mum many years ago. It flourished in her garden and when they moved house in 2003, she wanted to take the bush so we replanted it in my garden...and there it stayed...ooops!!

It is now a rather large tree and has had a glorious display this year so I was a very good conscientious artist, duly took my own photos and painted them. Bit chilly here in the North to paint en plein air in March! And I’m very soft....

The painting was progressing well and I decided to post it on FB as a WIP, while I was planning my next move!! Not something I normally do and wasn’t really expecting the huge amount of feedback I got telling me it was in fact finished! I hadn’t really posted it for feedback as to whether it was finished as I had intended to work on it further...anyway I left it.



It’s interesting how people see things and now when I visit groups, out of interest, I ask people if they think it is complete and most people feel that it is. The people who think it needs more work tend to be more detailed painters but just goes to show, no rights or wrongs in art, all a matter of opinion and in the eye of the beholder.

As I painted this the beginning of April I can’t remember the palette, but it was only 3 or 4 colours....those of you who do follow my blog will know I always use a limited palette and always, always choose my colours before I start to paint and this was no different.

To recap, limited palettes help colour choices throughout the process of the painting but more importantly help create colour harmony, one of the elements which we need to create strong design in our work.

Would be interested to hear if anyone has any thoughts about this or anything else for that matter.....