Bob’s Floral Painting Styles
Bob’s Floral painting styles really started to develop when he moved into his house in Wales in 1987.
It was the first time in his life that he had owned his own house and the first time he had a garden to plant. He spent a lot of time working in the garden in the early years, planting a whole host of flowering shrubs, mainly different varieties of Camellia’s, Rhododendrons, and Azaleas, due to the acid soil in his garden. Within a few years he had transformed what was an over grown garden full of weeds and brambles into a lush garden full of flower. It was his love of his garden that evolved bobs flower styles in his painting. he would pick the best blooms for his studio and then paint them.
He was already well known for his oranges and fruit illustrations when he got the job for Woolworths to illustrate their range of soil and compost bags. He started off with a realistic style of flower illustrations that where similar in style to his orange illustrations. painstaking illustrations that took lots of concentration and hours hunched over his desktop easel painting meticulase detail.
Now that Bob’s studio was big enough to incorporate a space for his own painting as well as his commercial work, Bob spent more time painting the things he wanted to paint for his own joy, a lot of which was the rich landscape of Snowdonia national park where he now found himself living in and his garden flowers. As a reaction to the tight detailed commercial work he did his own work was much looser and playful. He enjoyed the actual medium of paint and the mark of the brush. His flowers became more impressionistic. he let the brush work for him rather than forcing it to his whim as he had to in his commercial work.
Rather than creating images that where faithfully representations of the subject flower Bob’s floral painting styles changed and he started creating images that showed the spirit and essence of the flower, paintings that expressed the beauty, texture and feel of the flowers that he loved in his garden. They where more intimate paintings that grew in mastery as their relationship bloomed. Through the use of different paint mediums he was able to express different qualities of his flowers, from the texture of acrylic paints to the watery wash of water colour, he captured his flowers in ways that showed his enjoyment for his subject.
Bob was asked by Boots to develop a series of flower patterns for them to use on a range of bath creams and toiletries that they where planning on selling. They gave him the freedom to create what he wanted. So he decided to have fun with it and created a very simple watercolour style and produced 4 different floral patterns. He went on to do flower illustrations for Fisons Levingtons range of compost soils, Twining’s and Sainsbury’s
Bobs flower styles started with lots of detail and with time he replaced the detail with bold brush strokes. like a prisoner being set free from the painstaking detail, he relished the freedom of allowing the medium and his confidence in the brush to capture the beauty he saw in his garden blooms. Painting Flowers was something that gave him great joy and they featured in abundance in his private collection of paintings. Below are some more examples of the different floral painting styles my Father developed.
Work has started on 2 books about Bob Haberfields Life which will be published by Jayde Design the first book will be Bobs own selection from his private collection of artworks and the second book will focus on his Book covers, record covers and illustrations.
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