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"