I love hyacinths in a pot, especially the purple ones - their fragrance fills a room and reminds one of earth and spring. However, I have never painted them as the small individual florets that make up the flower head seemed too detailed for me, until now. I actually enjoyed drawing the floret details, which became somewhat obscured in the painting, but provide enough to suggest the flower. As the thick flower stem usually falls over with time, I managed to get to it before that happened and chose a close-up and looking down perspective, contrasting the vertical leaves with the strong stem diagonal. Whenever I work on paper I have the added bonus of being able to crop the finished painting if I think I can find a better composition - and below you see the two versions - the whole composition including some lemons, and a cropped version. Unfortunately, I can't make up my mind as to which I like better, so I will just leave it for now. Think Spring!
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| Original Version 1 - 21" X 17" |
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| 'Cropped' Version 2 - 18" x 15" |
