How does your garden grow?

This painting was inspired by the classic children's nursery rhyme, "Mary Mary". I loved this rhyme as a child, my mother was called Mary and I would wonder if she was Mary of the
rhyme. She was always out in the garden so it seemed perfectly plausible. I
also thought my Aunt was Princess Margaret, I had a colourful imagination or me
was just easily confused.

I always thought that the rhyme was about Bloody Mary Tudor. I've checked
Wikipedia, so bound to be right, and the rhyme could also be about Mary the
mother of Jesus or Mary Queen of Scots. The oldest printed version appeared in
1744.

Mary,
Mary, quite contrary,

How
does your garden grow?

With
silver bells, and cockle shells,

And
pretty maids all in a row.

I added the bees and bugs to the painting as our precious ecosystem just wouldn't
work without all their hard work pollinating. When I painted this image the
catastrophic drop in work d bee populations was all over the media.

How does your Garden Grow?" isn't a difficult painting but as there are 6
elements it takes longer than the images with a single element. Many of my
early Guided Paintings had multiple elements, this is a reflection of the
imagery and structure I have used in my own practice. My earlier career work,
produced in textile and gouache often featured repetition and formalised
elements.

After running these kinds of images for Guided Painting classes for some time I
realised that using multiple image compositions made for really long classes.
Students would get confused and tired. The single image paintings have proved
to be much gentler, especially for beginners.

When the class first ran in 2014 a regular student brought along her husband's
cousin to the class. She was a lovely lady and very accomplished in her work
life, however, a painting class proved to be much further out of her comfort
zone than she imagined. She struggled through the afternoon and became really
quiet. Her finished painting was great, yet she seemed despondent. Later my
the student told me that her friend had hated the class, she couldn't cope with the
lack of control and I nearly broke her. I felt terrible, I feel responsible
when students have a poor experience, I genuinely like people to go home happy.

Trying something new as an adult can be more challenging than anticipated. Learning to
paint even in a step by step class will push you. If you expect a relaxing time
then you should readjust your expectations. You will learn a lot and you will
come away with a much better understanding of many aspects of painting in
acrylic, but it requires effort and self-belief.

I have met many adults who experienced art at school as somewhere between
underwhelming and traumatic. An ill-advised remark from a teacher can ruin an
otherwise creative student. So many adults will say to me, "I can't draw
or paint", "I'm not creative"," I'm terrible".There is
too much self-deprecation and negativity.

Producing a painting can be a very exposing experience and naturally, students can be
very nervous. Unfortunately, those nerves and a negative inner voice can stunt
the very creativity a person is trying to achieve and lo and behold we have a
self-fulfilling prophecy.

These

painting classes are about gradually building the image. It won't look great at
every stage, you have to keep going. Do not panic. It will work, just take a
leap of faith. The old adage " practice makes perfect" is perfect.