After a visit to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, I've been looking at 17th century female, mainly Dutch and Flemish artists, who were painting flowers - generally all that was acceptable for women to paint back then! I particularly liked the dark backgrounds which gave the actual flowers a jewel like quality which 'glowed'. This is very much work in progress which I am only just starting to explore using different media and surfaces and working towards a 21st century take on 17th century ideas.