The old adage, "Paint what you love, and love what you paint" is certainly true for me. One of the first things I noticed when I returned to England after over 20 years in the USA, where gardens usually consist of lawns and shrubbery, were the flowers. I could not believe my eyes. It was early Autumn and all the gardens were full of roses. I would often walk around Darlington, just looking at the gardens.

Prior to this my work had been largely figurative and expressionistic. During my years in the USA I learned to use visualisation and meditation practices, and have led courses in this for about 15 years. It was after I returned home to England in the late ‘90’s that I began to paint seriously. I enrolled in an adult education programme in the Creative Arts at Durham University.

One of my major influences at this time was when I assisted the late Nerys Johnson, a well-known flower painter. Nerys had a crippling disability, and needed someone around her to help with paints, arrange her flowers and cook her lunch. I really enjoyed being around her, she had a bright, optimistic spirit, and not only did I learn a lot about being a professional artist and preparing for exhibitions, but also she taught me a great deal about colour.

And so, this body of work began. I have tried to capture a particular mood, a "portrait", rather than a botanical "photographic" representation, and when I paint I use my visualisation and meditation practices, incorporating inner feeling with outer subjects. It is my intention that others, perhaps who do not paint, may use my work for similar reasons, and I have listed keywords for meditation and visualisation beneath each of my paintings.

People often ask me how long it takes to paint one of my pictures. Well, it varies. It is similar to the birth process in many ways: some pop out easily and quickly, and others are long and laborious. The majority are somewhere in the middle.

I begin a painting with a thought and a feeling, and often search my files for the "right" image. I take photographs all the time, necessary for flowers, which move and droop before I have had a chance to work with them. I file away "ideas", often as sketches, when they occur to me.

I then prepare a canvas and I outline my image with pastel or charcoal, and underpaint with a thin layer. This is where I check the colour balance, and the painting is left hanging in the studio to contemplate, change colour, and generally fiddle about with until I am happy with the result. I normally have half a dozen or so on the go at once.

I then mix my paints thickly, and apply several more coats. When it is finished, I add a couple of coats of either gloss or matt finish. It is normally a couple of months from start to finish, but I have finished a piece in a few weeks, and sometimes it takes over a year. I recently spent a whole year developing a technique for backgrounds. Acrylic paint, by nature, is a flat, quick drying medium, so I have found a variety of ways to add texture and depth, and even though my work is contemporary, I have nevertheless "borrowed" a few techniques from the old masters, adapting them for acrylic paint.

Denise Macgregor