Gorse

This plant puts on a magnificent floral display in the most unlikely of places. Of course, gorse flowers are uncompromisingly yellow, so if you prefer blue or pink flowers they are not the plant for you. Luckily I’m happy enough with yellow, so I appreciate gorse wherever I see it.

When I first considered how to capture the vivid yellow and dark green of a gorse bush in a painting I immediately thought of acrylic paints. However, in the end I decided to continue my on-going battle with watercolours – they do not behave the way I think they should – or alternatively I am simply not very good at using them! As it turned out, the colours in this painting aren’t too bad, so maybe my perseverance is paying off and I am slowly getting the measure of the medium (or maybe not!).

For what it is worth, the plant in this painting is growing near the shore at Dunwich in Suffolk, although of course gorse bushes crop up in out of the way places all over the country.