Oil on canvas – 9,45 x 11,81 inch – Unique work

The idea came to me one beautiful morning of spring.

As I looked at my bouquet of freshly picked peonies in a beautiful garden of a small house in Conches-sur-Gondoire, a light went on in my mind. What if I had fun painting a small series of peonies? A small series of five, like the five fingers of the hand. So suddenly everything became crystal clear. I write the concept down in my little red notebook (nothing to do with Predident Mao Tse-Toung), just in case my memory plays tricks on me or just in case I finally don’t paint these beautiful creatures until much later .

I arrange a meeting with my favorite photographer … Myself! I take about thirty close-up and wider shots with the vase. I’m running tests, it’s so much easier with a digital camera. I started with a film camera, completely different! That same evening, I was happy to receive a photo of the same peonies from the same garden by the owners and my friends. And a few days later, another one! Both are awesome, impossible for me to choose between one or the other. So the two of them will be part of the series, it’s settled.

It’s exactly seven days before my departure in the north, invited by my friends, always the same ones, that I start a first draft of the series. It is the most tremendous thrill, ever. I try the colors, tricky this pink, fuchsia, aubergine, almost. And at the same time, giving them a name is not my strong suit. They exist at the end of my brush and not in my thoughts. That’s the key point.

The challenge, if I accept it, and yes, I do entirely, is to get the flowers to be on the five canvasses in a homogeneity of value and color. Same thing for the bottom! Hence the imperative need to do an intensive oil painting course no matter what! Here I am rocked by the song of marten brush on the canvas. Pigments here, medium there. All in small touches that are both precise and imprecise. And above all, to obtain the blur of certain petals to highlight the perspective. Not bad for a first time.