Oil Paintings - 'Fading Blooms' Series

Tulips

There are some flowers that make fantastic colours and shapes as they die, which I can’t resist studying for my artworks.  For me, being an artist is seeing the beauty in the unusual or what is taken for granted or unnoticed.  Tulips make wonderful shapes as they fade.  This trio of tulips inspired me because of the shapes, crinkles and colours that appeared upon the petals.  They are in the various stages of dying rather than completely over. 

This oil painting is part of my fading bloom series, a dying flower is not a sad thing, but part of the ecological process, the seeds generate new flowers the following year, and the plant and flower themselves have given life to many insects which in turn have fed larger birds and mammals as part of a complex ecosystem.