Magnolia Still Life

Magnolia Still Life

 by Marion Hedger

Oils, 40x40cm on boxed canvas

This painting was painted using an old watercolour painting as the basis. The original was painted on grey paper as an experiment. It originally had just the one open magnolia on the bottom left and three buds. When I came across it again, I thought "That doesn't look too bad" so ,as I am still in my oil phase, I decided to paint it in oils. Disaster. The comp did not look right at all.

When I analysed the original, I think it worked because I had painted it on the bottom right of a large sheet, and this gave the open flower lots of breathing space which it didn't have when transferred to a 40x40cm canvas. After looking at lots of magnolia photos and playing around with the comp, this is the end result. Let me know if you think the composition works.