Mystery Botanicals Wrap-up

I am stopping the one a day Mystery Botanicals. It was great to paint in the Fall but it had a natural end with the weather getting cold, the variety of plants lessening and I just got a bad cold.

Thank you for all watching, liking and commenting. Best to you all. Brenna

Mystery Botanicals #34

Mystery at Lighthouse Point

While I paint I watch a cat 6 feet from me catch a mouse from our wood pile. It took the mouse in it's mouth and trotted home with it.

There are a few tiny flowers left in my yard. I use my rigger brush to make long flowing grass strokes and then balance icy blue vine leaves on top of them and through it all the tiny yellow dandelions poke their heads up. It is like a large wave of life is about to crash over them.

mystery botanicals #34 Mystery at Lighthouse Point, October 10,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" overcast , 2h

Mystery Botanicals #33

Grateful

Thanksgiving dinner day! The house smells wonderful and outside is cold.

The cat owners, a family with 4 boys, saw the found cat poster. We gave them their cat back. It was a happy reunion as the cat was held in the teenage boy's arms and licked him. I am grateful we had time with the kitty, that I have time and supplies to paint and that I have a family to spend the holidays with.

These are garlic seeds they taste good when they are fresh. They hang like pine cones and the minty green background makes a holiday feeling. I like the downward droop of lowered expectations and the thin stems that cross two characters together.

mystery botanicals #33 Grateful, October 9,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" sun and overcast mix, 1h

Mystery Botanicals #32

The Allure of Mrs. Plum

This is our plum tree it has gone all pink. I have not painted just leaves in this series until today. They are just so flat I an not sure they will have enough interest on their own but the plum tree leaves are such an amazing pink that I jumped in.
 
This painting is pink. The two in focus leaves point at each other while their respective partners are unaware.

mystery botanicals #32  The Allure of Mrs. Plum, October 8,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" sun and overcast mix, 2h

We still have the cat. We put up more posters today in case the rain washed out the others. We bought a harness and leash because the cat is getting cabin fever. Here is my daughter giving the cat a walk.

Mystery Botanicals #31

Unsuited

Today I thought I might stop the series because of the weather of snowy rains. This uncertainty made me unhappy and jittery all morning until I decided to continue. I am still curious of where this series will go with the fall landscape inside of me and in my yard. Must build a better painting hut the plastic is too noisy and hits me and my painting. The plastic flew completely away at one point and I felt so naked.

The grey sky chunks around in solid blocks so weighty on top of everything. The vines smear into each other and arch across the surface while our main characters are awkward, prickly and trying to get to know each other in difficult circumstances.

mystery botanicals #31  Unsuited, October 7,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" snowy rains, 1 h

Mystery Botanicals #30

Unfavorable 

The blustery fall conditions continue so I paint fast in the 6 degree weather before I shut down from the cold.

Sticks jut upward. That is all that is left of the black raspberries. The purple clouds tumble across the sky. Everything is fast and simple. This is a stark work where two figure stand side by side in adverse conditions.

mystery botanicals #30  Unfavorable, October 6,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" overcast, 6 degrees, 1 h

Mystery Botanicals #29

Adventure in Blustery Valley

The afternoon is windy and grey. As fall progresses there is less to paint. My subjects will become more minimal as flowers, seeds, leaves and fruit fall and join the soil.

I set up and paint for 30 minutes and then it rains. I go inside and wait. As I wait I look at my painting and I love it. It is full of gusty wind, a rain cloud filled sky and thin vines that change colour as they progress. If I work it more it will just be different. I choose to keep it.

mystery botanicals #29  Adventure in Blustery Valley, October 5,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" overcast, windy 30 min

The Flowers of Fright, The Grasses of Gore, The Twigs of Terror and The Leaves of Lingering, all great names that my 12 year old daughter thought up for this painting or I can use them for other ones she says. She made up this one Adventure in Blustery Valley as all of I could think of at this time of night was so bad, The Hermit and the Forbidden Pleasure

Mystery Botanicals #28

Promise me a Whirlwind

The forecast is for a lighting storm and rains. I set up my plastic hut but it flaps in the wind so noisy and hitting me constantly. Half way through I take in down. I need to build a solid transparent movable hut but not today.

I paint the whole work drawing with the brush. It is so full and tight it looks good but I want an open bit and a closed bit because I don't want to trap the viewer. I wipe off the top half and sketch it in lightly. I like the wild abandon feeling of it like a storm is just approaching.

mystery botanicals #28 Promise me a Whirlwind, October 4,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" overcast, windy 1.5h

When I pack up the rains begin.

Mystery Botanicals #27

Professor Pear and the Road Ahead

The wind keeps the wasps away so there is only a few to paint.

The solid shapes arc upwards and away. The leaves are pink. I have this swirling everybody in the picture attitude, so in goes the grass and the leaves.

mystery botanicals #27  Professor Pear and the Road Ahead, October 3,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" sunny 3.5h

I like the look of the wet paint with the sun. It is so slippery looking.

Mystery Botanicals #26

The Reckless Apparition

So tired after the late night at Nuit Blanch, also picking up my daughter from Pathfinders camp and taking the found cat to humane society to see if it has a micro chip.

I am grateful for the time to paint. I make a woshing ghosting image of the dying pears and the energy of the zipping wasps. I am so brave to make work about this subject which must not be named.

mystery botanicals #26 The Reckless Apparition , October 2,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" sunny 2h

Found cat at in car outside of Humane Society. If when scanned and it has a micro chip my daughter must give it up . But Ack no chip and 7 month old boy brown tabby comes back.

Mystery Botanicals #25

Professor Pear and the Situation of Surrender

Nuit Blanche is on tonight so I will go and see all the art others have made. I still have images in my mind from the last two Nuit Blanches. My favourite was the car full of water, dripping and spilling onto the street.

There is a hot spot among the pears where all the wasps are. They eat, fight and fly. I make a yellow work. This painting talks about death. I think of the Dutch masters paintings about mortality using fruit and flower still lifes that mix full bloom beside decomposition. I am afraid of death.

mystery botanicals #25 Professor Pear and the Situation of Surrender, October 1,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" sunny 4h

I needed a new photo for google because I have aged since the last one so I had Rick take this one when I was painting. I look a bit like a fuzzy bear.

This bird was right in front of me chomping on an insect.

Mystery Botanicals #24

Professor Pear and the Time Devours

When I look at this scene I am hungry for pears and wish I had picked more of them before they fell.

I know I have only a short time to paint today so I am surprised with myself when I realize half way into it that I am painting 17 pears. Egads how will I ever finish. I try to draw the pears with lines but they want to be sculpted in. I just make everything very rough and only put a few wasps in and then. Oh pull me away it is time to pack up.

mystery botanicals #24 Professor Pear and the Time Devours, September 30,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" mix of sun and overcast 1h 20 min

so reflective, maybe you can see more of it in this shot.

Mystery Botanicals #23

The Juicy Surrender

I choose my spot to paint, get changed into painting clothes and then bring out my paints, oil, pallet, pallet lid, brushes, pencil, gloves, paper towel, easel, mats to sit on, camera, extra lens, glasses, sunhat and blank canvas. Then I take a moment before I begin and let myself feel so grateful that I have time in my life to paint.

The pears we ate were delicious. These are the fallen pears that the wasps, rabbits and squirrels are eating. I miss painting the insects, no more butterflies or bees but I found wasps. The wasps are eating the juicy bits of the pears. I roughly shape the pears yet I draw the leaves around them. It seems appropriate that I paint fallen things in the fall.

mystery botanicals #22 The Juicy Surrender, September 29,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" sunny 3h

My camera captures the actual insect and I am not doing that with paint

I am painting what I see as it happens with all the clumsy humanness and imperfection that is life in the moment.

Ps. the cat posters are up. Kitty is still here, skinny but eating lots and being a terroist to our 2 goldfish.

Mystery Botanicals #22

Miss Myrtle's Rescue

Sunny! Made cat found posters. The kids have not put them up, motivation low as they are hoping to keep kitty.

I sit in the warm sun and am able to paint faster because my fingers are warm. I am snug and there are pink fall leaves on the plum tree so I mix a warm colour pallet. The seed balls of the garlic chives bend and cluster in groups and the grasses swirl at their feet. Miss Myrtle's rescue may or may not be necessary but it is full of misadventure and fun.

mystery botanicals #22 Miss Myrtle's Rescue, September 28,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" sunny 3h

Sleeping bunny is so quiet

Shouting squirrel is so loud

Mystery Botanicals #21

Lonely but for The Shadow on her Heart

Midway through this painting my daughter and her friend bring home a cat that has no collar or tags. Hard to concentrate thinking of all the possible scenarios/outcomes of the cat - have they stolen someone's cat, who's cat is it, how do we find the owners and my kids obviously want to keep it. My two daughters go to buy cat food and kitty litter with their own money.

Two branches grow parallel to each other. This is pale painting that plays with solidity and lightness.

mystery botanicals #21 Lonely but for The Shadow on her Heart, September 27,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" overcast 4h

This wood pecker keeps me company for about an hour

stray cat? Now it is under my daughter's bed.

Mystery Botanicals #20

Miss Lavender and the Cold Spell

The lavender plant is low and out of the gusting wind.  50 to 70 km

It is cold and so I paint cold colours. The pale blue top is thinly scratched in. The leaves are warm to cool turquoise. I like the long stocks of lavender and it's delicate flower, almost wand like. I make one stock a warm purple feminine figure and three other stocks blue purple male figures. It has a melancholy cold change of season feeling.

6mystery botanicals #20 Miss Lavender and the Cold Spell, September 26,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" overcast with high wind 3h

ah ha finally I photographed one of the many birds that flit around me while I paint.

and another one. I am fast draw Mc Graw with my camera today!

a timed photo of when I start the painting to show how low to the ground I paint today.

Mystery Botanicals #19

The Storm of Orphans from Chokecherry Hollow

Rain all day lightning at noon, wind gusting to 60 km so I have to paint looking out my back door. This day is dark grey.

In the wind the choke cherries are in almost constant motion and still the berries hang on. I paint the motion, the movement of it all. The pale peach leaf stands out as the sign of season end. The berries still hang on.  I paint fast as there is no detail to capture with the movement. I keep the top light and upwards and the bottom in your face contrasty.

mystery botanicals #19 The Storm of Orphans from Chokecherry Hollow, September 25,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" rain high wind 1.5h

Mystery Botanicals #18

The Wedding of Dark Promises

It rains all morning and the afternoon is dark and almost misty. I keep hearing booming while I paint and wonder if it is distant thunder. My family go to Wheelies to roller blade and I paint the whole time they are away.

I have been doing a lot of predominantly dark paintings so this white one is a bit of a departure. I think of lace cutouts. It is like a lacy wedding dress and the groom, the blue leafed figure, stands in the background,. I have the two uprights that jut up and the berries of dark promises.

mystery botanicals #18 The Wedding of Dark Promises,  September 24,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" heavily overcast almost misty 3.5h

My easel is blocking the gate and my family has to shimmy sideways to get in.

Mystery Botanicals #17

Lady Crabapple's Dastardly House Party

My Dad and Basha sent me birthday money, Thank you! I went to the art supply store this morning and bought paints and 20 new canvases, linseed oil and 2 new brushes. The paints were fifty percent off because they are not going to carry my brand anymore. What a pig for supplies these Botanicals are. Drawing is simpler.

I buy a new blender brush and so I soften up the shading on the apples. I like the contrast between the choppy strokes and the disguised mixing of colour edges. There is a proper party above and secret liaisons below.

mystery botanicals #17 Lady Crabapple's Dastardly House Party, September 23,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" overcast  3h

Here is my new blending brush. New brushes dramatically change my painting.

New and old paints meet each other for the first time.

Mystery Botanicals #16

The Engagement Thwarters Return to Apple Valley

I start and stop 3 times today as I have to work and volunteer. I end up stuffing 100's of hotdogs into buns and wrappers for the meet the teacher BBQ.  I smell like a hotdog. This packing up and setting up over and over makes an image that reflects the hecticness. It is good to make art in all states of mind so that the whole emotional spectrum is recorded.

I am working with the extremes of each corner of the canvas. The main characters occupy the distant spots with the separating engagement thwarters occupying the center and blocking the possible connection. I keep the pallet warm and red.  Bits of blue sky flick thorough like tiny bits of confetti.

mystery botanicals #16 The Engagement Thwarters Return to Apple Valley, September 22,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" sunny 3h

The chickadees call out and land in the apple tree but when I grab the camera they are gone. This scenario is repeated many times. So I give up and photograph the squirrel running on the power line in the alley.

At the meet the teacher BBQ.

Mystery Botanicals #15

Engagement Thwarters for Hire

The apple tree still has some fruit but it is darkening and falls in mushy blobs. They land all over our car so I drive around town and it looks like I have been attacked by angry apple throwing malcontents.

The apples are in two sets of couples the dark chubby plotting couple in the corner and the in love but separated couple standing near each other but not touching. My favorite part of this painting is the cluster of pink leaves that bounce upward.

mystery botanicals #15 Engagement Thwarters for Hire, September 21,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" overcast and intermittent rain drops 3h

This tiny red squirrel eats the apples in the tree beside me.

The small red squirrel is fierce. I see it chase off a large grey squirrel. This whole apple tree must be this red squirrel's turf.

Mystery Botanicals #14

The Fleet Lane Gamble

This project has a heavy dose of time management required. Today I only have 30 minutes to paint. I imagine I can come back at night in the yard and finish by flashlight. Well now I know that doesn't work for me. The plant looks totally different. If I start in the dark that might work.

Today I put in a Manitoba Arts Council Grant to do a daily painting series of figurative work, work at the school lunch program, pick up photos for my daughter's school project and take my daughter to her musical theatre class. Oh and I paint for 30 minutes and then later I stand in the dark with a flashlight trying to paint and take a photo for another 30 minutes.

The blue represents night which is falling. The strokes are fast and liquid. Clusters of berries and paired leave growth are the rhythms of this piece.

mystery botanicals #14 The Fleet Lane Gamble, September 20,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" dusk 30min

This is where I go in the middle of painting today's canvas.

this is what I feel like today. On the go go go so I am all blurred out.

Mystery Botanicals #13

The Search for the Castle Rock Heir

Windy 48 gusting to 67 km/h. My pallet cover cardboard is weighted down by a large tube of paint. The wind flips it up and the paint tube hits me in the head. Ouch!

 

Garlic chive seeds form great bursting balls of seeds. The small pink figure in the corner is childlike and hidden behind the group of foreboding central figures.

mystery botanicals #13 The Search for the Castle Rock Heir, September 19,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" WINDY 3h

My easle and painting are knocked over by the wind. So lucky that it landed sticky side up! When I bring the painting in the house it falls again landing on its side and the painting is not damaged! Two falls and still intact what a lucky painting.

Mystery Botanicals #12

The Unfortunate Orphans of Manchester Gardens

It rains on me three time and I run into the house holding my painting upside down. I miss my plastic hut. After yesterday's painting, I talked with my sister who is a writer and she encouraged me to focus on my original intent of mystery novels but use my natural bent toward Gothic and period piece mysteries for inspiration. I may look back at the 11 other titles and tweak them.

The lighting is very pretty at the end of the day and I paint fast to capture the one type of light. I like the fireworks look of the chive seeds.The two soft warm coloured chives in the center huddle against and darkness and the others on either side.

mystery botanicals #12 The Unfortunate Orphans of Manchester Gardens, September 18,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" intermittent rain 1.5h

Here is the sky and why I had to dash inside with my unfinished painting several times.