Nature’s Brightest Hues: Still Life Flower Paintings by Maureen Shotts

Today’s featured artist is Maureen Shotts, a very talented painter from Alabama.

As I looked through Maureen’s online gallery, it was obvious that the rich, vibrant colors of nature take center stage in almost all of her artwork—and especially in her gorgeous paintings of flowers.

In Misty Morning, above, Maureen first arranged then painted a still life made up of primarily adjacent colors, creating a natural and pleasing color scheme for the focal point of the piece.

You’ll notice that the vase and flowers are placed so as to be “framed” by the background window (on the left) and shutter (on the right), adding even more emphasis to the subject matter of the painting.

Autumn Tango, below, also uses adjacent colors like greens and golds with bright splashes of orange as an accent—but this arrangement was set against a deep background of dark brown for a softer, richer feel.

Of course I love those strips of colored cloth laid at the foot of the vase, simply echoing hues found in the flowers themselves.

My favorite painting by Maureen, however, is this one, entitled Hydrangeas.

Stylistically, this last painting departs a bit from Maureen’s other pieces (a palette knife was used instead of a brush for much of the painting) but all I really noticed at first were those glorious pink petals.

The rest of the colors are fairly muted tones like creams, browns, and greens—but of course, that simply makes those hydrangeas leap off the canvas even more.

If you’d like to see more beautiful paintings by Maureen Shotts, please take a moment to visit her website at MaureenShotts.com.