Description

Which wildflowers do you love most? I’ve been observing thistles recently – I love all the wildflowers. On my daily walk, I watch them come up, open and fade over time. I gather photos of them to perhaps paint at a later date. I’ve always loved thistles!

In order to get round to the best parts of this painting, I first had to prepare the background – deciding on the right hue for the pale yellow sky and green foliage. I made sure the whole canvas got covered amply in paint, with no holes showing through to the raw canvas. I defined the stems and leaves, sometimes using my left hand to add some less controlled mark-making. I also played around with a bit of sgraffito (using the end of the paintbrush to draw directly into the wet oil paint). All this, just so I could get around to the exciting parts – painting the sculptural thistle heads.

Thistles are extremely satisfying to paint – I thoroughly recommend having a go at painting them yourself because they are very forgiving. In fact, it doesn’t really matter much how you approach them cos they still end up looking like thistles.

I used oil paints for their lightfastness and vivid colours.