Wasn’t it nice and warm in September? Our garden was full of really tall sunflowers, massive swathes of cosmos and buddleia, loaded with butterflies.

To capture their colours, before autumn really sets in, I decided to paint a few loose and lively pictures.

They are all a bit abstract in their own way.

In the first one, Sunflowers, Cosmos and Buddleia, I wanted to capture the essence of the flowers but leave more the viewer’s imagination. So the sunflower heads are square-ish shapes of warm cadmium yellow, with a dark brown centre. One of the sunflower heads is flopping down due to its weight, so I’ve tried to convey this.

Sunflowers, buddleia and Japanese anemones in gouache and pastel.

The buddleias are more conical in shape in vibrant purple with some of the flowers hinted at with pastel.

Then there are a mix of dark pinks for the cosmos flowers and lighter pink for the Japanese Anemone.

The background is a mix of darker green for the sunflower leaves and yellow green for the bright, vibrant foliage of cosmos.

It works for me. I’ll produce prints and also think about whether it might work for napkins or tea towels.

The second and third paintings were created from ‘blind’ or ‘contour’ drawings. Quite simply these are drawings that emerge when you draw something without taking your eyes off it. So you never look at the paper. The results are almost always odd looking, with squiggly lines everywhere. But it’s really liberating to do this as it forces you to just look at the outline of a shape and respond with whatever you’re drawing with.

I resisted the temptation to ‘correct’ the drawings, and left them in all their wobbly, misshapen glory. My kids thought both paintings looked like a cartoon. Which is fine by me! I like their quirkiness and the contrasting colours and patterns.

I’ve decided to sell these as affordable prints.

What do you think? Do you prefer more realistic paintings, or are you a fan of the more abstract approach?

Thanks for reading!

Louise x