I painted this today as a break from working on a portrait which has been giving me problems of late. The portrait obviously needs to be drawn, and skin and hair tones reproduced, as accurately as possible. For some reason I’ve been struggling to achieve a satisfactory result this time. These problems have been exacerbated by the client’s wish for me to replicate the style in which I produced a couple of paintings around 8 years ago, the problem therein being that my style has evolved a little since then and I’m finding it difficult to remember exactly how I used to work.

Anyhoo, this painting of the daffodil was a release from those tensions – a quick (hour and a half) sketch that I could just relax and enjoy – playing around with paint and not worrying over the accuracy of drawing or the manner of paint application. It’s a small piece – 8″ x 8″. I painted it in acrylics, which I’ve been using for the portrait, on stretched canvas.