Spring always comes as such a relief, especially if it’s been a long winter. This wonderful time of year brings new flowers and foliage that can be used for our still-life paintings. Every year I am surprised at the freshness of this season. It is this freshness and enthusiasm that I want to capture in my spring still-life paintings.
All the examples here were planned carefully but painted quite quickly to capture the feeling of spring – the colours you choose will convey this.
During 2019 there were several major national exhibitions with the word ‘colour’ in their titles, including the Ivon Hitchens exhibition ‘Space through Colour’ at the wonderful Pallant House Gallery in Chichester. Hitchens was constantly inspired by nature and although he is mainly known for his landscape paintings, this show included still-life and flower paintings, as these subjects also became central to his art. He used a harmonious palette in many of his still-life paintings of pots of flowers set against a window and used his colours to create luminosity. His work is a fine example of how a limited harmonious palette can be used to good effect in your still lifes. There are many still-life painters who can inspire your work and visiting exhibitions can give you new ideas for your paintings.