"Arisen" #4 oil 24 x 36 It's been some time since I've painted flowers; as a watercolorist, I did so frequently, especially when I was teaching myself to paint. The reason was as simple as some flowers; I could imagine how to tackle the problem -- problem, because I am at heart a realist. I don't feel the need to change reality, just to try to catch it on the fly and perhaps record a moment or a colour or a mood. Two circumstance combined this winter to bring me back to botanica. As a lover of all seasons (for each is stunningly beautiful in its own way and because of its own palette), I have walked daily with Jon through all of it and may actually have had my fill of snow for the first time in years.
Add to that the workshop with Bert Liverance, master of large-scale botanical painting, and I found myself digging through digitals in search of spring. I have photographed thousands of flowers since our first purchase of a digital camera in 1999. So I trolled through those images and it was the crocus who spoke to me first.One of my earliest memories is that of going with my mother to the riverbank to search for the tiny wild croci, the true harbingers of spring. They even create their own habitat by producing enough heat to melt the snow around them. Clearly a spring flower to admire.
I love native plants the best, and spring ephemerals (who have come and gone by the time the canopy opens) are my very favourites, springing ("spring"-ing) as they do from the dusty litter of left--over autumn.
Add to that the workshop with Bert Liverance, master of large-scale botanical painting, and I found myself digging through digitals in search of spring. I have photographed thousands of flowers since our first purchase of a digital camera in 1999. So I trolled through those images and it was the crocus who spoke to me first.One of my earliest memories is that of going with my mother to the riverbank to search for the tiny wild croci, the true harbingers of spring. They even create their own habitat by producing enough heat to melt the snow around them. Clearly a spring flower to admire.
I love native plants the best, and spring ephemerals (who have come and gone by the time the canopy opens) are my very favourites, springing ("spring"-ing) as they do from the dusty litter of left--over autumn.
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