Japanese Iris

 

16 x 20 inches - oil on canvas board - While these irises will tolerate damp conditions, we also grow them in normal garden beds.

Blue Irises

 

16 x 20 - oil on canvas board - Irises are one of my favourites in the garden.

Iris Falls

 6 x 6 inches - oil on hardboard - The variability of irises is almost infinite. You could never own one of each kind because new ones are created all the time.

Yellow and Purple Iris

 

6 x 6 inches - oil on hardboard - Here is another in the series of iris paintings that I made a while ago. If I zoom in and show part of the flower I hope they still read as iris, but that it is more interesting than the standard portrait view.

Pink and Purple Iris

 

6 x 6 inches - Oil on hardboard - I like the abstract shapes in these closeups of bearded irises.

Rose-Coloured Iris

 6 x 6 inches - oil on hardboard - Here is another closeup portrait.

Tan and White Iris

 

6 x 6 inch - oil on hardboard.  We don't grow many of the large irises anymore due to the iris borer, but I find them beautiful especially up close. I have not posted for quite a while now, even though I never stopped painting. I just decided with the (hopefully temporary) slow down and unreliability of the postal service in both Canada and the USA I would put a pause on selling.

Golden Muffin On Stage

6 x 6 inches - Oil on Gessoboard - This is the second time I did this one. You will never see the first one. In fact, it may end up painted over at some point. I am more selective now about what I post. Unless I am more or less happy with the result I will keep it in the pile or wipe it or paint over it. There is no point in posting something that I will have to look at and will torture me later.

Pink Iris

 6 x 6 inches - Oil on Gessoboard - It is important to me to try to stay loose without making the image obscure or inaccurate. We are used to looking at photographs with backgrounds a little out of focus. Our eyes don't work that way because they dart around a scene making everything feel like it is in focus. On the other hand our familiarity with photos means in a painting you can draw attention to the foreground by being a bit vague with the paint on the background.  I think this portrait of another bearded iris, demonstrates this point.

Deep Red Falls

6 x 6 inches - oil on gessoboard - Here is another small iris painting. As always, I paint with walnut oil mainly because I have read that it is more flexible on drying. The truth is, I have never had a problem with paint falling off or cracking but I guess the next couple of hundred years will tell that story. I work usually alla prima so these issues are reduced anyway. I also can paint with a minimum of toxic chemicals if I wish to. If I painted on linen like I do for larger paintings, the texture would be too distracting.

White and Blue Iris

6 x 6 inches - Oil on Gessoboard - These flowers offer an almost infinite variety for compositions. I tend to gravitate to images of high contrast and saturated colours. For small paintings like this I use commercial boards and occasionally  ones I prepare myself. I like the smooth, not slick, Ampersand boards. For larger (8 x 10 inches and above) I like the texture of oil primed linen. I glue these onto panels unless they are too large. For larger works I paint on the linen while taped to a board and then stretch it on a frame.

Orange Iris

6 x 6 inches - oil on gessoboard - We don't have many of the tall bearded irises in our garden anymore. It is just too much trouble dealing with the iris borer.  The smaller irises and Japanese irises are not as prone to the problem. It is a shame because the tall ones are spectacular.

Yellow Iris

6 x 6 inches - oil on gessoboard - I have been painting a number of flower portraits lately. This is from a photo that I took of one of the irises in our garden.

Two Blue Irises

7 x 5 inches, oil on gessoboard - It was interesting trying to decide what part of this painting to paint first. The white under the beard was painted on top of the colour.

Early Iris

6 x 8 inches, Oil on Canvas Board - The small irises give us a lot less trouble in the garden than the tall ones because they do not seem to get the dreaded Iris Borer.  This creature turns the iris rhizomes into a stinky mess. I suppose they are going to be delayed this year because of the winter we had but they put on a great show - its just closer to the ground.

Brown Iris

This iris in real life is brown.  I changed it. Sorry.

White and Purple Iris

6 x 6 oil on gessobord.  I decided to paint a number of individual flower portraits.  This is the first one. I hope you like it.