As a long time floral painter, having a studio full of peonies is pure joy. The scent of these soft and fluffy flowers is intoxicating and only heightens the experience of painting them.

 How amazing would it be if I could make peony paintings scratch and sniff and encapsulate the sweet, floral fragrance? I'll get to work on that. No promises, though.

When I snagged a late season bouquet of white and coral peonies, some were just starting to open, and a few others were still in a tight bud. The great thing about peonies is that you can keep them in the refrigerator for quite a few weeks and they will stay fresh and unopened. This is exactly what I did with these and managed to stretch them out for over a month and create quite a few paintings from them.

 I knew I wanted to create a botanical inspired artwork with one of the larger coral buds. Over the course of a few days, I would take it out and set it in the sun for about an hour. The morning it reached that 'critical opening stage' I set up to paint, arranged the still closed blossom in a vase and began mixing paint just after sunrise.

Working furiously I quickly blocked in the shape, constantly changing it as it opened further until it reached this stunning wide open and beautifully shaped full bloom. It smelled AMAZING! 

Once it opened I was able to slow down a little bit and focus on the beautiful and subtle shifts of color in each petal. And as I continued down through the stem and leaves I really loved the block in lines which were still visible and began playing with energetic and directional paint applied with a palette knife to capture the energy of how fast that peony burst open.

This painting was a wonderful lesson that sometimes less is more. What a gift to spend some time fully focused on the remarkable energy of a stunning flower bursting into full bloom in the early morning sun.