This first painting is part of a triptych of three small circular works that are meant to look like warped reflections in round convex mirrors. 

 

I have a bit of an obsession with the depiction of convex mirrors in art (like in 'The Arnolfini Portrait' and 'A Goldsmith in His Shop') and I wanted to see if I could paint one not just as a prop in a painting but as the whole painting. I used reference photos taken with a fisheye lens and I wanted the style to be very smooth and blended like the surface of a real mirror rather than textured with brush strokes. Irises are one of my favourite flowers and the first oil painting I ever did was of some irises (and I love a red/blue combination). The main difficulty was cutting out the panels and then sanding them down into circles.