Original artwork description:

The idea for this painting came to me when I saw some flowers in a garden this Summer! There were deep red tulips which were almost black, next to my usual favourites the deep purple bearded irises. At the start of every Summer, around May time the bearded irises can be seen and I make sure that I visit all of the places next to where I live, where I know they are going to be. Once I see them I itch to paint them! Seeing them next to the tulips was inspiration for my painting.

I started this piece by painting the Moon. I knew I wanted to paint a Moon again and juxtapose it with a range of flowers. The dark red and purple flowers seemed perfect. The process for this painting resulted in the deep red peonies being added in to relieve the other colours, which were mostly blue/purple in tone. It seemed to me that the colours were deep and rich and singing with vibrancy against the dark background, even though my aim was to focus on just "highlighting" the flowers by the Moon. They were performing their own sonata and Beethoven's beautiful "Moonlight Sonata" seemed to fit as a title.

Materials used:

oil paint

Tags:

#oil painting #flowers #moon #floral #moonlight #flora #irises #oil on #tulips #beethoven #flower painting #peonies #floral art #flower art #deep violet #deep purple #deep red #deep rich #moonlight sonata #bearded irises