Painting “A Hollyhock riot in the pink garden!”
Plein‑Air Painting – Oil on Canvas Panel
Burton Agnes, East Yorkshire, England, UK
Even though there's an unpredictability about al fresco art, outdoor painting is addictive.
A weather forecast suggesting a bright day with much sunshine is never guaranteed, and I arrived on location to a very dull day.
Though the Summer was drawing to a close, I was not yet ready to lose the sunshine from my pictures, and was disappointed at the prospect of painting without sun and shadows.
Pacing about in search of a subject to paint, it was in the pink garden where I walked into what I could only describe as a riot of Hollyhocks flowering like, well, the summer was ending.
Hollyhocks are biannual plants, meaning you have to wait a year before they flower the next year. Plant them en mass though, and you're in for a riot of flower worth the wait.
This is why, despite rapidly heading into Autumn, my search for a subject to paint didn't take long the day I found this view. At the bottom end of the walled garden at Burton Agnes Hall there's an area with many small colour specific gardens.
Though it wasn't as bright a day as I'd been fortunate to enjoy during the previous weeks, the pinks here fizzed so much it didn't matter. That's the power of flowers.