The lavender harvest was such a joyous painting to make.
The moment when I went to my garden to harvest the lavender and was coming back with painting idea instead.
This painting began exactly there. My own lavender, gathered into a watering can, brought inside and arranged on a grey stone slab with the green of the garden abstractly added behind it. The scent was still in the room while I painted. That's not something that happens with every still life - and hopefully you can feel it in the finished piece.
Some paintings are a struggle. Rework, second-guessing, fighting the canvas for days. The Lavender Harvest was none of those things. It was, from the first brushstroke, a pleasure. The lavender was generous with itself - full and abundant, its purple blooms catching the light in exactly the way I hoped. And light, as anyone who follows my work will know, is really what I'm painting. Always.
What drew me to this arrangement was the contrast - not the dramatic chiaroscuro contrast of my darker still lifes, where subjects emerge from shadow, but something softer. The cool grey of the stone, the solidity of the watering can, and the glorious little, delicate blooms. Light that doesn't reveal - it simply is.
If you've ever harvested lavender - or even just walked past it on a warm afternoon and stopped because the scent stopped you first - I hope this painting brings something of that back.
The Lavender Harvest is an original oil painting on cradled wooden canvas panel, 30 x 30 cm. [View it in the shop → The Lavender Harvest ]
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