Botanicals #53

fifty-third painting

lawn clover

It is warm and the bees are loving the sweet clover nectar. I am so overwhelmed and sad that I am stopping this series today. I have a hard time coming out to paint as I know it is my last one of this set.

This is a vibrant green painting with sloppy flowing lines showing the clovers receding in the distance.

botanicals #53 June 22, 2015 oil on canvas 9" x 12"

Botanicals #52

fifty-second painting

clover

So I am getting sad as I know this series has to end. I have too many other responsibilities,
3 kids home for school in the summer. I need to give them attention not sit in the yard painting. I will miss the long hours outdoors, the daily painting and the steady progression of my art. 

The clover flowers slip into the dark green of the leaves and grasses. Pink dashes downward. It is poky sweet and a bee at the top bends a clover with it's fuzzy weight.

botanicals #52 June 21, 2015 oil on canvas 9" x 12"

Botanicals #51

fifty-first painting

back alley iris

I am sitting in front of our parked car on the outside side of the fence and thank goodness I am because the slip and slid is going strong in the yard. My son and his two friends have the hose attached to the long slip and slide and it is spraying water in wide ark and the water guns are out and active too.

The iris was a bud yesterday and today it is open. I paint it as a diagonal ark almost like a shooting star across the night sky. In doing so I accentuate the fleeting and spectacularness of this flower that will only last a day.

botanicals #51 June 20, 2015 oil on canvas 9" x 12"

Botanicals #50

fiftieth painting

Iris by the fence

These were here when we moved in ten years ago so who knows how old they are. The leaves are so tough but the flowers so fragile with a life span of only a few days each year.

Soft, pastel and sculptural I create an empty floating object. Irises are like that big and sculptural but weightless.

botanicals #50 June 19, 2015 oil on canvas 9" x 12"

Botanicals #49

forty-ninth painting

The crack in the cement.

It is busy back here as I paint and watch the 3 baby red squirrels who live in the trunk of the neighbours apple tree. They come out of the nest and chase each other up and down the branches, trunk and fence top.  I think of Chip and Dale cartoons as their movements are fast, funny and sweet.

I always like making x-ing patterns so I enjoy the crossing lines of weeds and the crossing thin stems of the Shepperd's purse. I use a fan brush for most of this work and it gives a light swoopy motion to the work. I am seeing a theme emerge with the works a bouncy enthusiasm for life and life forms and a barely in control painting style.

botanicals #49 June 18, 2015 oil on canvas 9" x 12"

Botanicals #48

forty-eighth painting

back alley

I look up and a few feet in front of me a rabbit is quietly eating the dandelion leaves. I wonder how much of what is happening I miss because I am concentrating on painting. This rabbit lives in our yard. I recognise it because it has a ripped ear. I wonder if a cat did that.

I reduce the image to a few colours and line. I am making a sunny image of intense lime and yellow colour, a happy fragmented bouncy piece that holds scattered bits of information.

botanicals #48 June 17, 2015 oil on canvas 9" x 12"

Botanicals #47

forty-seventh painting

back alley weed patch

The shepherd’s purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris) plant has seeds that are pinkish and heart shaped, a weed meant to be loved. Similar to the dandelion it has many uses, eat the leave in salads, use the seed pods in cooking to give a peppery flavor and use it as a medicine to treat ailments from nosebleeds to hemorrhages.

The tiniest bee flits to every pineapple chamomile flower and drinks at each stop.

I paint the soft dirt colour in the bright sun with it's dashes of dark shadow. I am totally enjoying painting many many pink hearts across the canvas. I make a delicate gentle image of the ecosystem of the many tiny plants.

botanicals #47 June 16, 2015 oil on canvas 9" x 12"

Botanicals #46

forty-sixth painting

back alley weed patch

Ah one of my favourite childhood plants, pineapple chamomile. When I was a kid in Victoria we had a back alley with lots of pineapple chamomile plants. I loved to pick off the yellow heads and crush them between my fingers and smell and smell. I also used them to decorate fairy nests.

A lot of dirt and little white and beige rock chips, pineapple chamomile and a weed with heart shaped seeds and tiny white flowers, this is a tiny world magnified.  I paint delicate with hundreds of strokes and dots creating a confetti fireworks effect that creates a back alley fairy magic feeling.

botanicals #46 June 15, 2015 oil on canvas 9" x 12"

Botanicals #45

forty-fifth painting

red rose bought for dance recital

I arrive home in the early evening and as I am about to go outside to paint, it pours with rain so I choose to paint the second bought rose sitting on the kitchen table. I bought this rose for my daughter for her Jazz and Musical Theatre RWB dance recital.

The red rose centres the painting solid and heart like. The leaves and cellophane border are painted in a lacy style. Over all a simple solid and still image. The strong red and white combination shouts Canada.

botanicals #45 June 14, 2015 oil on canvas 9" x 12"

Botanicals #44

forty-fourth painting

red rose from the dance recital

I am so busy helping Karen with her video shoot that it is dark by the time I get home and have supper so I choose to paint the rose that I gave my son for his Hip Hop and Jazz RWB dance recital. The bought flower has been sitting on the kitchen table since last weekend calling to me.

I like the red heart of the painting being boxed in by the cellophane wrapper. I paint big bold and angular. Then I smear away the bottom half into forgetfulness. The red heart of the image demands attention and the rest is inconsequential other.

botanicals #44 June 13, 2015 oil on canvas 9" x 12"

Botanicals #43

forty-third painting

chive patch

The City of Winnipeg sprayed Malathion into my yard last night.  I signed up for the no spray buffer last year but I probably have to renew that request. Less bees today, no butterflies, no dragonflies.

It is an odd painting to work on and this has never happened to me before - I think it is fantastic and keep staring at it closely as I paint, internally saying wow, wow, wow. I use thin paint with lots of oil to give a transparent look and in the sun the transparent colour suspended in the shining oil does look amazing. I wonder if malathion alters my mindset making me non-objective.

This is a divisive painting. The two halves are determined by the two chive plants in the front and the background that is half light and half dark. I can't really analyze it because when I look at it, even later, it gives me a woozy dreamy feeling. I mean this painting is fantastic, WOW!

botanicals #43 June 12, 2015 oil on canvas 9" x 12"

Botanicals #42

Forty-second painting

chives at dusk

I am painting this as dusk approaches. The bees are slowing down for the evening. A few are getting their last sips of chive nectar for the night.

The purples are muted. Only a few bits of chive flowers and stems are sharp edged. This is a soft darkness falling look.

botanicals #42 June 11, 2015 oil on canvas 9" x 12"

Botanicals #41

forty-first painting

Bees, chives and grasses.

I break my favourite liner brush the one that is allowing me to make detail. No fret, I hot glue gun and tape it back together so it can live on to make all the tall chive stocks and curving bee bodies.

Just as I finish this painting I check the mail. I get a thick letter from the Winnipeg Arts Council. Thin means rejection but thick means acceptance and forms to fill out. I just got a grant to pursue my project called "Experiential Canadania Adventure".  I will buy, paints, pencils and sketchbooks. My supplies and tools will be replenished. I am relived, happy and stunned as the grant process is as always a yes/no, we love you/we hate you dizzying unhealthy game.

Bees, this painting is about the bees, Yes it is the chive patch with its purple flowers bursting open in cone shapes but the bees animate it. The bottom half is the blue green of the chives,  the top is  the yellow green of the grasses and in the middle are the soft bouncy pillows of the purple chive flowers that the bees roll about on and eat snacks.

botanicals #41 June 10, 2015 oil on canvas 9" x 12"

Botanicals #40

fortieth painting

Purple pansies.

I have little time as I start too late in the day at 7. At 9 my son comes out and lays his head in my lap. I need to get him into bed.

I want to use the same pastel pallet as yesterday. I think I can but every painting has different desires. The dark purple heads float in a crest like pattern that is reminiscent of my daughters PokeWarts tee-shirt logo, a Hogwarts crest with Pokemon characters. This painting is a soft gentle environment with mad disapproving little pansy heads floating about.

botanicals #40 June 9, 2015 oil on canvas 9" x 12"

Botanicals #39

thirty-ninth painting

The pansy patch has this one plant with two different flower types.

There are massive forest fires in Saskatchewan and the sky in Winnipeg is a eerie peach coloured hazy. My asthmatic daughter has trouble breathing. The shadow from our hose on the white stucco wall is oddly turquoise.

I emulate salt water taffy using butter-cream thick paint and pastel colours. I can't take the pansies seriously. I like their determined faces all pouty and grumpy but they make me laugh as they are but small flower heads.

botanicals #39 June 8, 2015 oil on canvas 9" x 12"

Botanicals #38

thirty- eighth painting

I am in the garden where the chives flower and the dandelions seed.

This wall wall of growth with a fluffy pompom top traps the viewer in a wall of impenetrable lush life. Two bees navigate through, one drinking in chive nectar and the other flying with legs dangling.

botanicals #38 June 7, 2015 oil on canvas 9" x 12"

Botanicals #37

thirty- seventh painting

The side door pansy patch again.
I have no time. It is raining all morning and there is only a short break of sun and time between my children's dance recital rehearsal and show.

I acknowledge the time allotment and so focus on deliberate one-go brush strokes. With this drawing with the brush like a pencil, pencilbrush style, I make a flat and bouncy image.

botanicals #37 June 6, 2015 oil on canvas 9" x 12"

Botanicals #36

thirty-sixth painting

Under the pines.
Lilly of the valley so perfumy.

A different postman this time says " Your painting is Awesome!"
The neighbour across the street says" Your logging in office hours painting."

Muddy and soft colours and flower stocks hidden under the leaves give this work a distant feeling yet the pine cones ground this painting.

My partner is asking when is this series going to stop, my daughter says 58 facebook followers are not a following, I have so many other projects and things I am neglecting and my paints are almost squeezed out so I am doubting this project.

Creation takes confidence.

To rebut - butt jokes always perk one up. It is great to have an instant audience for art. This has never happened for me before. Usually I make work and it goes in the basement or if I am lucky one piece goes in a group show. It makes the work feel more substantial not so ghost like and it is improving my work knowing I will have people looking at it. My paints running empty is an good thing as it means that I am working and am not stockpiling for imagined great projects I am actually making a substantial body of art,

I hope by doing this daily series of oil paintings I will reach some magic point of experientialness meets upgraded skill and I will make some amazing art.

botanicals #36 June 5, 2015 oil on canvas 9" x 12"

Botanicals #35

thirty-fifth painting

This pansy greets me every time I enter the house. Its gorgeous lavender colour is soft.

I want to paint a large iconic image so I paint the small flower large like an Andy Warhol flower print. I water the plant to perk it up before I paint so the dirt turns a flat rich black and white fleck stand out like stars in the night sky. It's large head lures you to its centre with airport runway markings leading in.

botanicals #35 June 4, 2015 oil on canvas 9" x 12"

Botanicals #34

Thirty-fourth painting

Lilly of the valley and grasses under the pine trees. First Mosquito bite.

A quite day and a quiet painting. The flower bells cluster at the centre. A skinny bee checks them out. I like the fatness of the wide leave contrasted with the thin grasses.

botanicals #34 June 3, 2015 oil on canvas 9" x 12"

Botanicals #33

thirty-third painting

Lilly of the Vally poisonous but oh so pretty and sweet sweet smelling. I am still under the two tall pines. It is so quiet today as the weather forecast is for lightening and a deluge of rain. Quiet dog walkers pad about.

The white bell shaped flowers dangle off of almost invisible stocks. I create a nestling feeling by almost outlining the plant grouping in dark black brown. This isolates and cocoons them from the surrounding world. Dried and living grasses swirl and poke up around them.

botanicals #33  June 2, 2015 oil on canvas 9" x 12"

Botanicals #32

thirty-second painting

I sit in the same spot as yesterday. I have been going in series of 3 of each plant so logically I should paint another strawberry but I like the dandelion with the pine cones and so I paint it.

A daycare of four, 3 year old children stop to look at me painting. The caregiver says "Oh, you are painting the favourite flower of all the kids in the neighbourhood." She also says "It is so windy that your not painting your making a multi-media piece!"

The elm trees are scattering their seeds, pine needle fall from the pines and who knows what else those tiny particles are and it is all sticking to the canvas and palette. Wind unnerves me as too many things are in motion. Wind south 40 km/h gusting to 60

I pick a simple stand alone dandelion under the pine tree. I paint dark and pull the forms out with lighter colours, The pine cones whole and eaten frame the plant. An ant is framed drinking inside the flower. It has a frame within a frame.

botanicals #32 June 1, 2015 oil on canvas 9" x 12"

Botanicals #31

thirty-first painting

I chose this group of plants because I like the spray of strawberry buds in the bottom right hand corner. I feel able to take on more today so it is a more-is-more painting.

I sketch with pencil first and then fill it with detail. I record cone seeds, pine needles, elm seeds and dandelion seeds. The looking down view point gives a flatting pattern like aesthetic.

botanicals #31 May 31, 2015 oil on canvas 9" x 12"

Botanicals #30

thirtieth painting

The wild strawberries grow under the blue spruce.

My day is busy so I pick simplicity - a strawberry and a grass. I paint bold and fast. The 5 petalled white flower is clean and pops out as the main focus. Elm tree seeds mixed with pine needles to make an xoxo patterning. The upright grass stock is a Mondrianesque divide.

botanicals #30 May 30, 2015 oil on canvas 9" x 12"

Botanicals #29

twenty-ninth painting

Canada Columbine companions the chives. I jump back and forth from painting, mowing and weeding.

Many layering strokes x-ing across each other and the complementary colours of red and green make this a jangly hectic painting,

botanicals #29 May 29, 2015 oil on canvas 9" x 12"

Botanicals #28

twenty-eighth painting

It is raining again so I am back inside looking out at the world though the screen door. Lilacs and chokecherry drip with rain.

I paint soft like the day.

botanicals #28 May 28, 2015 oil on canvas 9" x 12"

Botanicals #27

twenty-seventh painting

Canada Columbine is a native prairie plant and it comes up in the same spots every year. I am painting and pausing to take photos of the red squirrel who lives in the apple tree next door. My brother gave me a zoom lens, so nice of him.  I sit for so long quietly painting that the birds, butterflies, rabbits and squirrels come and go about their lives around me.

The flowers have tall five pointed crowns so I play with the curvy loopyness of them. I find myself nick naming them the "alien queens". I accentuate the hovering spaceship nature of them by painting the stem lightly. I make the background a blur of the colours of the neighbour's blue-grey roof and the purple lilacs. 

botanicals #27 May 27, 2015 oil on canvas 9" x 12"