I planted a mimosa tree in my garden and when it grew its blooms were quite impressive. I used to cut some branches and leave them in a vase with water for decoration. Then I realise how long the flowers last and I decided to paint a still life.
As I already mastered the technique of painting the refraction effect on glass and water I picked a big round glass bottle like the shape of the flower.
Once I finished the composition I thought that in few weeks I would finish a spring essence, colourful and gorgeous still life.
Unfortunately, it didn’t go as I planned. When you only have one colour, the only way to create that volume is to mix it and apply various layers. But, I faced a huge problem with the large drying time of all yellow oil paints I found.
I went to numerous art shops and tested all yellow oil paints from different brands I found, but none of them had the expected quality.
Finally, I had to paint each flower from the front layer, and in order to create the characteristic waxy coat of them I dried each brush-stroke with a cloth dipped in turpentine.
Nowadays there are no oil paints with the same quality as when I was young.
