Romantic Botanicals Wrap up

I am stopping this series and it is officially closed.

Thank you for watching and reading my progress and experiences in this series. Knowing I had readers and followers definitely gave me a huge boost.

It is very tough to stop, the yard is calling and so are my paints. I am terrified that I will loose this lovely endless flow where painting absolutely anything is easy and meditative. I am doing summer stuff now like taking my son to the wading pool and to free Slurpee day and making hot dog dinners. See summer stuff. I am putting aside passionate painter lady for now.

I am taking a break to reflect and plan my next project. Hope you all have a great summer.

Romantic Botanicals #72

More

This maybe my last day of this series. I started painting at 1 pm and my daughter waited for me to go on a bike ride with her until 5:30 because I was painting. I didn't start earlier because I was cleaning. Last year when I did this series I was so sad when I stopped but this year I am just tired. It is so humid out I am covered in sweat.

The Oregano is flowering. I love the way the leave grow symmetrically like a lacy mirrored pattern. I painted a lot of the flying critters. I wanted a more more more painting because it might be the last in this series.

romantic botanicals #72  More, July10,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" sunny, 4.5h

It is so hot out. I have weeded the garden but only the tiny patch I am looking at. Painting is taking up my time.

to show how much time has passed since I started the series, this is the plum tree that I painted the blossoms of.

Romantic Botanicals #71

The True Original

It starts fine, the day, then we hear a sound like a fire hose going off in our bathroom. The hot water connection broke and is spraying hot water. There is 4 inches deep of hot water on the floor by the time Rick turns off the water main. It is fast but the clean up of the bathroom and then the basement and basement storage took most of the day. It is a day that I would not have made art if I was not doing one-a-days. When I sit to paint it feels meditative. I am realizing something about myself, I like structure. Then the thundershowers come.

This is the Oregano in Marshall's garden. I told him it was a pizza spice, which it is.

With this The True Original title I imagine 3 characters vying for the position of most eccentric or unusual person in the village and two of them falling in love with each other and the third winning the title.

This painting is yellowish green. The colour represents the rest of the oregano plant which I give no information beyond colour. There are many buds but only these three stalks bloom. The flowers are tiny and in bunches like mini bouquets. This work is extremely loose because I am so tired and then the rains come. The work is raw like me today.

romantic botanicals #71  The True Original, July 9,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" overcast, 2h

 

 

Spotted some wildlife under the Oregano

Romantic Botanicals #70

Picnic Season in Fleabane

A half a bottle of brush cleaner leeks into my paint box. I knew it shouldn't be there and I kept meaning to take it out but I didn't.  I wash the outside of every paint tube.

I think I need to stop this series soon because I am not doing vacation actives with my kids and summer in Winnipeg is so short. I might stop any day. I have been emotionally preparing for this by starting a second one-a-day drawing project which is in day 14 today. Drawing is portable and quick and it will allow me to do more summer activities with my kids. I will miss making this series because I feel that progressively every painting I am getting deeper into exploring paint, plants, insects and portraying romantic interactions.

Fleabane, Sooth or Philadelphia type I am not sure. I go with the all out daisy like simplicity. I stripe the sky in like a picnic blanket pattern. I use a intense lime green to show the height of summer greenery and sun. The big white butterfly or moth went by so quick I just guess at remembering the white swoosh of it. I like the joyful feeling of this one.

romantic botanicals #70  Picnic Season in Fleabane, July 8,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" sunny, 2.5h

Bee, day 13 of mega draw. The bees are sure getting friendly.

Romantic Botanicals #69

 Ms. Bergamot and the House Party

This is Wild Bergamot, I bought it from the Prairie Originals Nursery several years ago with my daughter.

When I make the pencil sketch before painting I think Wild Bergamot would be the perfect Minecraft flower. The flower shape is box like.  I made a dark outline for the foreground images and blue for the background images. I also left almost visual dark holes in the picture. I was thinking of how our thoughts rest in spots and our mind goes deeper. This is what happens when you stare at flowers everyday for 2 months.

romantic botanicals #69  Ms. Bergamot and the House Party, July 7,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" sunny, 6h

I love how the tiny bees hang off of the tips of the flowers.

I have to make so many decisions like to leave the white or not. A new decision is to paint all the bees even if it erases some of my best painting because I always remember that there should have been a bee there.

This bunny was watching me from different vantage positions all morning.

Romantic Botanicals #68

The Three Suitors

Lavender, this is my daughter's plant. She wants her garden plot to be full of just lavender. So far I have bought her two plants. Plants are expensive. This one I paint today survived the winter and it is the second summer for it here.

Bees fly by but only the tiniest stop to investigate. Half way through painting I put on bug spray because the mosquitoes are biting unfortunately no more bees come near either.

I go for that dark background that pushes the pale colours forward but I don't want a dark painting today so I only put dark around the lavender heads. The smearing darkness acts as marker of the fragrance and echos the viewer's focus when looking at this plant. I like how I made the stocks and leaves pale and so the flowers hover above. Lavender has tall stalks.

romantic botanicals #68 The Three Suitors, July 6,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" sunny, 4h

a red squirrel eats a unripe apple above me

a dragonfly eats a moth in front of me

Romantic Botanicals #67

Let us be Soft

I am back at the garden with the flowering lettuce. Even on this overcast morning there is lots of bee traffic.

The darkened sky is producing a pastel colour pallet and low tonal contrasts. I love the laciness of the buds, branches bees and flowers create. This is a bouncy and soft work.

romantic botanicals #67 Let us be Soft,  July 5,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" heavily overcast, 3h 20 min

detail of  the busy bit of the painting

 a squirrel behind me eats the unripe pears

Romantic Botanicals #66

 Lily and the Houseguests

Everyday I tell myself I will start painting earlier to beat the heat yet everyday I do dishes, laundry, exercise, breakfast, check in with the kids before I paint. I like to paint with a clear head, meaning that everything in the house is settled while I am out in the yard. Ideally I need to wake up at 6 on these summer days.

Bees come today and I feel so sorry for them because there is no place to land to get near the pistil with its nectar. They bump into the stamen and knock around into anthers and get covered in the pollen and cling on with their tiny legs to the bendy filament. Lily is not a friendly flower for pollinators.

I am still doing the fireworks on a flat background. I continue with the one stroke style but this time even more thick and goopy. I am playing with a brightness reversal of colour. The flower is orange but I am painting it blue and the background orange. It is like an after image when you look at something very contrasty.

romantic botanicals #66 Lily and the Houseguests,  July 4,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12"in the shade, 2h

bee hanging on to a bendy filament

bee hovering, swooping, searching for a way to get at the nectar.

this butterfly or it's friends (they all look alike to me) keep trying to get at my paints. They have been at it all week. I keep windmilling my arms to shoo them or it away.

I have been successful until today when one finally sat on my paint tubes until I told it politely that it was not a healthy spot to investigate. It left with no back talk. I covered up my paint tube box again.

Romantic Botanicals #65

Fireworks for Lily

The Lily is big and loud but no insects go to it.

This is a continuation of yesterday's party bright festive theme. I make an image like fireworks shooting into the sky.

.romantic botanicals #65 Fireworks for Lily,  July 3,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12"overcast, 1h20min

I like the dragging brush strokes that leave gaps as the thick paint slides off of the thin oily orange base layer.

Romantic Botanicals #64

Lily goes to Town

I have waited a long time for this bud to open. Now it is finally here and I do this quick painting and then go inside and fall asleep. I must be getting my son's cold.

It is an all out orange painting. It glows in the sun and has me doing one-go brush strokes of colours that visually vibrate with the orange. Freckly like a farm girl meets the psychedelic 60's. I like the party feeling about this work.

romantic botanicals #64 Lily goes to Town,  July 2,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12"mostly shady, 1h

see how the colours glow in the sun

Romantic Botanicals #63

Homestead Garden Club

Happy Canada Day! It is quiet in the neighbourhood. My son and his 2 friends collect bits of wood from the construction site next door and are going to build a fort somewhere. I try to paint fast so I can go to the Celebration at Osborne Village but the faster I try to paint the slower my mind goes and I can't do it and they leave without me. I will go later hopefully.

The romaine lettuce keeps loosing me. Often I bounce around painting bits and pieces but if I leave off one of these branches I can't find where I am. I have to paint branch by branch. Most of this painting has a chunky blunt feeling to it but the painted bees are light weight and part of the air.

romantic botanicals #63  Homestead Garden Club,  July 1,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" sunny hot, 5h

detail of the painting

I get lots of interruptions while I am painting and have stop and then comeback.

Here are the interruptions of my painting into my real life today: Pokemon card dispute, breakfast, lunch, finding a bike helmet and finding shorts.