Canna Lily Study

Canna lilies in my garden glow in the morning light, bringing out the fine details of their petal construction.

The vibrant oranges, reds and golds leap out from the indistinct background greenery, making for some drama. A simple botanical subject, this painting's bright colours will draw your eye. The flowers are highly detailed, whilst the background is an abstract of blues and greens, exploiting the sometimes random and unpredictable nature of watercolour that I love.

The piece is signed on the front right hand bottom, plus signed and dated on the back. Image size is 28cm x 40cm, with a 0.7cm bleed edge all around for framing. Paper is A3 size overall.

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Hi there, I’m Kate. Thanks for looking at my art!

I am a largely self taught hobby artist, working mainly in watercolour, pen and ink and graphite. I don’t have any formal fine art training, but brief study of interior and industrial design grounded me in the fundamentals of highly detailed representational work. Despite my love of the finer details I am trying to find a looser, more emotive style, veering toward semi-abstract.

I enjoy learning the properties and limits of an often unpredictable medium like watercolour, because it’s equally frustrating and satisfying. Sometimes when you think watercolour has gone very badly wrong it turns out so right! This is why you’ll find chaotic experimentation and controlled detail contrasted in my work.

I don’t have a particular narrative I’m trying to deliver: I’m a dilettante mainly driven by the aesthetic, especially that of the natural world. I find inspiration in random places, from magazines to photography, to hikes in the bush and doing my own never-ending gardening, to graphic design. I work from my own reference photographs and stock photography.