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.

Mystery Botanicals #11

The Vacant Ranch

This is the garden that didn't get weeded while we were away this summer. It takes me a bit of painting and wiping off the canvas to realize that I want a main character out of this big tangle of many. So I choose the gone to seed chives.

It is almost like I am painting nothing because the seed pods are so small and are on tiny stems which form the ball of chive seeds. Fireworks of dotted spheres. This painting has the feeling of a full and lively world of airy unsubstantialness except for the serious tiny, seeds, ladybug and flying insects.

mystery botanicals #11 Weightless Relationships, September 17,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" sunny 5.5h

just wanted to show how the colours look when it is lit.

Mystery Botanicals #10

Dusk at Chokecherry Hall

It rained all day so I did a lot of other stuff and then began painting at 6 pm in the stairwell looking outside at the chokecherry tree. At first it was dripping wet and at the end it was in darkness.

When I lived outside of Osler Saskatchewan I made chokecherry wine with a dairy farmer. It was amazing. That was the only time in my life I drank a fair bit as it tasted so good and I would have a bottle when I had my baths in the tub I had in the middle of the field. Magic bath time.

It is a faster work and I am happy with the evident brush marks. I build a center bleak patch of dusk to draw one into the darkness of the chokecherry berries. Then I radiate pale purples outward to soften the edges. The center has you falling into darkness with the white highlights on the berries to save you.

mystery botanicals #10 Dusk at Chokecherry Hall, September 16,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" rainy dusk 1.5h

As I am in the stairwell I can hear my daughter and her friend as they ice a cake. There is a lot of whispering going on.

Mystery Botanicals #9

Exhale Chocolate

I am at the front of the sidewalk and lots of people walk by as paint.

I started plant paintings in 2012 with my handling chaos series diptychs. Today I am thinking about that series because I packed the 16 paintings in my car this morning and drove them down to the Manitoba Arts Network office. My show is going on tour to rural venues for a year.

The narrow leaf sunflowers emanate chocolate fragrance. So I paint like chocolate, chunky at the bottom and soft and swooshy at the top. It is is clumsy at the bottom and elegant at the top. It is almost like a diptych in one painting.

mystery botanicals #9, Exhale Chocolate , September 15,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" sunny  3.5h

Oona and her friend bring home their band clarinets for the first time and learn to play on the front steps.

Marshall sits beside me and talks about school while I paint.

Mystery Botanicals #8

Sun and Chocolate

It is so windy that my painting blows over once, things are flying by me in the wind and the flowers  are bending up and down while I look at them. A big spider clings to a flower, though the wind, during the whole time I paint. I ignore all that and make a still looking work.

These are one of my top ranked favorite flowers. The Narrow Leaf Sunflower a native prairie plant whose flower smells exactly like milk chocolate!!!! Yes I couldn't believe it when I first smelled it out on a nature walk in the southern part of the province. We kept running to each plant and sniffing it. So I bought some, planted them in my yard and here they are.

I paint the background for the emanating milk chocolate fragrance. I choose a warm chocolaty brown. The long narrow leaves curl. The stems are tall and narrow. I keep my brush strokes very simple.

mystery botanicals #8, Sun and Chocolate , September 14,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" sunny  2.5h

Mystery Botanicals #7

The Pair

It is cold 11 degrees while I paint. I keep taking breaks and going inside to warm up. It is slow going.

I keep the leaves flat and thin and plump up the solid pears. The two foreground pears are the biggest on the whole tree and together they sit companionably, quietly while the three pears in the background talk about them. Such gossips and tale spreaders. I aim for a light yellow painting but it becomes more complicated with leaves, leaves and more leaves.

mystery botanicals #7, The Pair , September 13,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" sunny  4.5h

Mystery Botanicals #6

Left out of the Pair

It is so cold 13 degrees. The pears fall while I paint and I hope that the ones I am looking at stay attached to the tree. They do but others fall all around me with big thumps.

I am still working with a yellow pallet but tending towards the green side. I paint two pears bright and one pear in shadow. The bright pears are almost a couple and then there is tension with the left out pear.

mystery botanicals #6, Left out of the Pair, September 12,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" sunny  2.5h

The wasps sleep on the pears while eating them because it is cold out.

Mystery Botanicals #5

Mr. Pear's Company

This is the first day I could take my time painting. It is Sunday and it is hot. I sit and paint.

I choose to paint the pears, many pears. I like a crowded scene because of all the interactions of characters/elements in this case pears.

mystery botanicals #5, Mr. Pear's Company, September 11,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" sunny  4.5h

This woodpecker is right above me. Bits of wood rain down on me and I have to cover my pallet.

Mystery Botanicals #4

Mr. Pear's complicated Pairing

Today is free day in our city so I spent the morning putting out stuff that our family has out grown, 4 bikes, small chairs, toys etc. I got this feeling that I could put out everything I own and it would all be snatched up.  I did stop but it would be nice to have lots of empty space in the house.

The pears are falling everyday. The rabbits and wasps sit and eat them. The squirrels have been squirreling them away in our garage.

I go for an all yellow image. I accentuate the pairing of the pears. Pears grow that way, in twos. I paint an exploding world with a focus on the bottom pears.

mystery botanicals #4, Mr. Pear's complicated Pairing, September 10,  2016 oil on canvas 9" x 12" sunny  3.5h