A big welcome and thank you to everyone who has chosen to visit and subscribe to my 50 Flowers blog – I hope you enjoy my occasional updates of my progress and the inspirations for this fundraising art project. I must admit my progress has been a bit slow over the last couple of years and I appreciate the boost and encouragement that having some more followers will give me – hopefully to get me into a faster gear!
2025 began for me with a visit to the Van Gogh exhibition ‘Poets and Lovers’ at The National Gallery in London. I went with my daughter Farah, who is also an artist, and it was very inspiring to see so many of his paintings and drawings close-up and to be reminded of how talented and prolific an artist he was – we both came away from the gallery feeling inspired to do a lot more drawing and painting this year!
Some our favourite paintings at the exhibition were of Van Gogh’s flowers and we were struck by how his brightly painted backgrounds seemed to glow, creating a strong contrast with the botanical subject matter.
I also loved seeing Van Gogh’s drawings of the French countryside, with his expressive mark-making, especially his use of ink and a reed pen. I often draw in my sketchbooks, but I’m going to start doing more drawings on larger sheets of loose paper after seeing Van Gogh’s choice of large-format papers that he used when visiting Montmajour in 1888.
The accompanying gallery guide highlighted how Van Gogh used his imagination to alter the views he was recording, often adding and subtracting figures and buildings, exaggerating colours and changing the layout of the landscape to suit his expressive needs; his artworks becoming “the result of meticulous observation and the artist’s imagination”. I often become too easily caught up in the details and realities of how a subject matter looks, especially when I am working from photographs. I would like to free myself to become a bit more imaginative, expressive and playful in my work. I hope you will see this in my future flower paintings!
In each room of the exhibition we chose our favourite painting; these were some that we particularly loved for their colours and compositions:
In a fantasy world where we could choose one painting from the exhibition to take home and keep forever, after a bit of deliberation, we both chose ‘Oleanders’, agreeing that it would always be an uplifting and inspirational painting to have up on our wall!
I am starting the year with a determination to draw more, paint more and complete the six flower paintings I am currently working on before we get fully into Springtime.
Wishing you a Happy New Year and I hope 2025 brings lots of joy, colour and inspiration your way!
50 Flowers for 50 Charities 
Megan Loved hearing your thoughts about the Van Gogh exhibition and finding out your favorites and the reasons behind them. I agree that the backgrounds almost seem backlit. You’ve helped me further appreciate Van Gogh’s mastery of innovation, creativity and powers of observation.
Tracy x
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