Lately I seem to be inspired with flowers. I enjoy their bright colors and varieties that are endless! I actually began by sketching a big bouquet of pink cosmos after Christmas. The pink, magenta and red-violets always inspire me to pick up my paintbrush, dip it into the vivid colors and paint the floral shapes!

After beginning this design, I found it was not to my liking. I edited the shapes and redrew the composition. I originally thought this would be great as a watercolor painting, but while sorting through my acrylic collage papers, I changed course. I was particularly interested in one shape — a blue-black piece with window cutout shapes in it. That was the springboard for my new design. Usually I begin with the flowers and work my way around the design. This one was different — the vase was the focus. I changed the peonies to dahlias; the shape reminded me of the full, spidery petal shapes. I used my X-acto knife to cut the shapes out, just free-form blossoms, and kept them simple. Red-painted daisies were added to the bunch.

While gluing these shapes I decided to add a window, to echo the window shapes in the vase. I chose bright yellow for these geometric shapes. Stems and leaves were cut out and I rearranged them until a pleasing design evolved. I loved the brilliant pink and crimson shapes and was thinking about how to finish the design. The edges were uneven and I had a brainstorm to make a new “wallpaper” design for the borders. Wanting to add a textural element, I scribbled with various oil pastels on my paper first and then put on a wash of ultramarine blue. This did the trick! Using tracing paper, I cut out the border strips and tacked them into place. The initial shapes were tacked on with a glue stick so I was then able to shift the background shapes behind the flowers and glue those first and then work forwards to the essential shapes of the bouquet.