The Series Grows!

Botanical Fantasies

Botanical Fantasy V

I haven’t shared any painting with you in over a month, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy at it. I’ve completed five Botanical Fantasy paintings and have another that I’m still working on. Well, not actually working on: it’s in time-out right now because it’s not behaving properly. More likely, I’m not behaving properly and am trying to force my will upon it, so it will rest, and so will I, until we can get along civilly.

Apart from the problem child, making these paintings has brought me joy. They’ve flowed easily, without the messy-middle or, what I call, the sullen adolescent period many paintings go through. You artists know of what I speak. I think it may be because these feel so different, and yet, at the same time, a bit nostalgic.

They are different in that I’ve changed subject matter from people to plants. This feels odd to me in a way that is hard to explain. It’s a little bit like using my non-dominant hand; it just feels awkward. I think because I’m not having to deal with an emerging personality as the painting evolves: it’s more of just a general, non-confrontational mood. It’s very difficult to explain how I come into relationship with the faces as I paint them, but I do: they develop personalities. The flora don’t. They don’t feel anything but inert and benign, and frankly, it’s a bit of a relief. I’ve also changed my color palette some and spent time mixing paint on my palette rather than on the fly, or glazing transparent layers on the canvas. Those feel like two fairly significant shifts in the way I work.

The botanicals are helping me to remember how it felt when I was first learning to paint. I began with watercolors. I had always been a draw-er (I suppose sketcher is a less awkward word, but “sketch” feels like something you just dash off), and at the time was working in colored pencil, but I needed a way to speed up that very laborious process. I had three kids and a full time job and not much time to make art! I thought I would try to combine the pencil atop watercolor washes, but quickly fell in love with the painting and left the colored pencils behind. They are sitting in a drawer in my studio still. I have used some techniques I learned with watercolor in these new paintings, particularly, negative painting, where I am carving out a shape by painting the space around it, rather than the thing itself. This is how I achieve the depths in the backgrounds, close to the bottoms where it gets busy with undergrowth.

Botanical Fantasies II, III, and IV

I plan on making several more of these and, hopefully, show them sometime next year. Gallery spaces, take note!

Botanical Fantasy I

I’ve saved what I think is the most interesting part of this story for last. The first painting in this series, just above, is one I made strictly to use up leftover paint on my palette. It spurred a heated discussion between my husband and myself, that I wrote about here:

Who knew a few blobs of old paint would turn into a full-fledged series.

Hey, did you know that if you click the little heart at the top of the page it will help more readers find this publication?

Thanks for coming along with me. I appreciate the connection.