Series of small paintings

In South Australia we have just been going through spring season and I had some blue-violet irises blooming so I thought they would be a good subject to paint. I took a few different photos of the flowers and then began a small painting on stretched canvas. I thought the colours were unusual because they were different shades of blue turning to a majenta shade. I tried to capture this colour variation in the painting.
In the photograph the background colour was trees and tall grass and I thought these things were distracting to the main focus of the painting so I intentionally painted a plain dark background to enhance the bright colours of the flowers and bring out the brilliant colour contrasts. Sadly the flowers didn't bloom for long but now there is an image of the beautiful flowers that will. This small painting will be the first of a series of small paintings that I plan on creating. I have since painted another small still life painting which will be listed in the next post. Thanks for reading about the art.

News and updates on new paintings being added to the website

For this post I would like to write about when I add a new painting to my website in addition to giving information to new painters. The paintings will be listed in my website at the following address:
http://www.marilouoloughlin.com

I would like to write some comments about some of the paintings I am doing and thought this blog would be the ideal place to put the comments in. I will begin with a painting that I did awhile back called "Cow Shed" (above)
This painting was painted on location just outside the small town I live in South Australia. The cow shed was located off a dirt road. I was intrigued with this abandoned stone building that used to be a cow shed. I think the building must of been nearly 100 years old. I was interested in painting this because I thought it was very unique and unusual. These old abandoned buildings tell alot about the history of a place. I wanted to "capture" this bit of "time" on canvas before it disappeared forever. The view I was looking at was into the shed and there was a hole on the other side with a view of the outside. The roof of the shed was a type of metal. There was lots of old "junk" laying around inside the shed. I wasn't game to actually go inside the shed for fear of snakes or spiders. I welcome any comments on any of these paintings if you so care to write about it.