How Does Your Garden Grow

Remember that nursery rhyme—Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

I snapped a photo of Dave's garden on the autumnal equinox, knowing full well that painting the riot of foliage and commingled orange mums and pink-purple asters wasn't going to be easy.

Quite oppositonal, that patch of garden.

I put up a good fight and found myself happy just dipping my brush into paint and brushing paint onto canvas. The window was open, the sun was shining, the air was warm, the physical act of painting felt delicious.

But what a contrary riot of foliage and commingled orange mums and pink-purple asters!

Here's take #1.

Dave's Garden, Equinox
6x6", acrylic on gessobord
floral
2015

Hiding in the Shadows

Couldn't resist a second response to the Daily Paintworks shadow challenge. Surely the silhouette of my daily paintings propped in my family room window qualifies as an odd shaped shadows!

Many challenges here. One example: how to take what shows up in my home as a gray shadow on a light gray carpet and create any visual interest. Already did dark gray shadows on my lighter gray driveway!

So, now my family room has a tangerine floor covering lit by the sunshine streaming in one of its south-facing windows, and the unlit portions—those areas where the walls of our home cast "shadows"— show themselves to be blueberry.

Dabbed in a little tinting and shading to evoke a feeling of Berber carpet texture, called it an abstract day!

Hiding in the shadows, perched on the ghost gallery window sills projected onto my family room floor, stand the following:

Evening Walk, Kelley Point Road
Wanderlust
Rock-Solid Sunshine
Evening Barn
Jones Creek
In the Fullness of Summer

Backlit Gallery
6x6", acrylic on canvas board
abstract
2015

Simple Simon

Such pleasure at my easel, playing simple and quick. No fussing. Just a big ol' brush, some medium magenta, cadmium yellow medium hue, ultramarine blue, and titanium white, and an urge to bask in summer's last gasps.

Don't even particularly care for asters all that much but, on a sunny blue-skied dry-aired afternoon with first-day-of-autumn looking over my shoulder, grabbed up an armful of those spiky little blossoms in my mind's eye and put 'em on canvas way larger than life—again, looking at them from underneath.

Downsida Dis Aster
6x6", acrylic on gessobord
floral
2015
sold

In the Playground

Laurie Mueller's paintings are lively, colorful, and expressive. She recently painted some daisies from an on-the-ground-under-the-flowers-looking-up perspective. Totally love 'em!

So, you guessed it—headed out to the garden, got down and dirty, and took me some pix.

Went to my studio with a few intentions: big brush, gestural strokes, bright underpainting of entire canvas. Often when I paint, I lose myself in a scene, as though I were there. With my flowers, I got absorbed in the act of painting. Felt very aware of how different that process is for me from a year ago.

Last summer, I would never have thought to paint my canvas a deep orange before starting. I would not have painted without sketching first. It would never have occurred to me to let the underpainting pop through vividly. I would have painted the sky first and then superimposed my flowers. I would have used a small, small brush more than once, holding it like a pencil and essentially using it to draw.

Instead, with my flowers, I was in playground mode, running around playing with new techniques. Had fun messing about. Thanks, Laurie, for sparking some experimentation in me!

Downside of a Black Eye
6x6", acrylic on gessobord
floral
2015

Train Leaving

I've been participating in Leslie Saeta's 30 Paintings in 30 Days September 2015 challenge. Because why not? I already paint every day anyway. Didn't find out about the challenge till almost midmonth, but no problem: join any time! paint as often as you can! no rules! no such thing as cheating!

New art, new friends, comments at my blog, commenting at others' blogs.

Watching what catches my eye or heart or both.

Discovered Gwenda Waterink whose work is not like anything I've ever done. Kinda like it, kinda like it a lot. When that Gwenda train rolled into the station I thought, I'm taking that train, and I stepped off the platform.

Pulled out a sketchbook. Oil pastels. A collection of pens. Told myself I'd ride the train for no more than 30 minutes.

Totally fun.

Combined early memories of elementary school worksheets (lines, letters, shapes, colors) with the spirit of my granddaughters' homeschooling (broke "the rules" by using my non-dominant hand for the whole exercise and coloring out of the lines).

Now I've stepped back off the train. Wonder where I am.

Worksheet
6x9", mixed media on Aquabee paper
abstract
2015
$54

Optical Illusion

This little playground experiment was quite satisfying. I started with loose ideas in mind but quickly got absorbed wandering around inside my imagination. It was like painting a dream that keeps shifting shape and meaning. No way to really know when I was done except that I guess I woke up from the dream!

In the short time that this piece has lived here in my home with me, it has seemed a bit like an optical illusion. Sometimes I look at it and it feels flat, just a series of horizontal stripes of barely differentiated widths. Other times I walk right into a fully realized landscape and think about leaning over to pick up a pebble to toss into the water.

Either way, the process and product scratched an itch.

Wandering Around Inside
6x6", acrylic on gessobord
abstract landscape
2015

Nowhere on My Radar

Painting this little scene was nowhere on my radar when I woke up. Nowhere.

Poked my nose into this week's challenge at Daily Paintworks: Can you find an odd shaped shadow and make it the center of interest in your painting?

No idea, but what the heck? I'm game.

Lush groupings of giant dahlias grace various locations in our gardens. With camera in hand and the shadow challenge in mind, I noticed how one of those sizable aggregations shaded our driveway. Snap!

Instant abstraction. Engaging challenge. Monochromatic montage.

Had to laugh that the pesky chipmunks who tunnel under our driveway indirectly provided some visual interest for my painting in the form of patched cracks—first time I've ever appreciated their handiwork!

Had to smile that a few dahlia petals had dropped into my scene as well, giving me a bonafide pop of color.

Driveway Dahlias
6x6", acrylic on gessobord
abstract
2015