The Spontaneous
COLOUR STUDY
Rosa 'Compte de Chambord'
Colour Study
watercolour on paper, fragment,
Now living in Paris
2003
In 1979, I formulated the Colour Study as a process, following a year of secluded training in large brush calligraphy in Japan. I originally called these rapid works Meditations on Nature. The practice of calligraphy allowed me a response to the flowering world that is both spontaneous and rapid. Recording colour and light in succession. I observed innate and characteristic patterns, which I termed specifically ‘general demeanour’. I recorded flowering plants living through the changing facets of space and light.
Information in these works is gathered through observation and accumulated in a freely painted combination of colour mixes, experiments with technique, and annotation.
In the 1980s I accumulated daily Colour Studies in my studio and began to present them to the Collectors of my work. I often offered these study works with their associated large precision paintings. The RHS Lindley Library were gifted the bloom and bulb colour studies in 2,000, with their commissioned precision work of a Lilium regale. These were exhibited together in the Ueno Museum in Tokyo, in 2005.
Major collections, such as the Shirley Sherwood Gallery, began to exhibit the Spontaneous Colour Study as a bona fide working process. As an aspect of observational flower painting, these rapid works have consequently established their place in the Botanical Art genre, and are collected and commissioned as individual artworks.
Coral G. Guest
SELECTED COLOUR STUDY WORKS
1982-2016
Papua New Guinea Seed Pods
1993
- All art works in this section are currently untitled-