Remembering poppies – morning light

In the last couple of posts I have talked about the problems I was having getting some work completed for the Waverley Connections exhibition that opens this coming Friday night here in South Taranaki. My problem was trying too hard, ignoring my intuition – generally fussing and worrying instead of creating. This morning I grabbed a canvas, paints, wet wipes and went for it. I had in mind the early morning light in the Lazio region of Italy, and my memory of how the poppies appear quite randomly, wherever the earth has been disturbed. I’m much happier with this; it has the feel of light I was looking for, a sense of the poppies without being pedantic about how they really look, and a looseness that is much more my usual work. As always, the lesson is simple, but one I occasionally forget – each of us can only paint what is in us, any thing else simply doesn’t work.