Growing up in British household, I had always been surrounded by gardening enthusiasts and heard the chatter of plant names from a very early age.  When starting my painting journey, I was frequently taking advantage of flowers in vases and working watercolor technique and composition.  Later in my life I returned to my attempts to capture the delicacy of flowers but this time in the medium of oil paint. This was my challenge, how to capture the translucent effect of the petals and the intensity of colors that is not possible in a tube of thick, opaque oil paint?  There are several decisions in the process, when do you leave the drama of formative strokes and begin the arduous journey of detail that pulls out stamen and pistil?