Whew...what a busy 6 weeks!...I didn't mean to be gone so long, but I did get a lot of painting done, and managed to get seventeen pieces finished for the show! Thank you to everyone who continued to check on me...I did try to glance at my e-mail every few days, but I think that's the longest "computer break" I've had since we first got Internet...:)...I have such a one-track mind, I don't know how some people juggle so many different things in their lives....
I have so many things to share about the animals and gardening and art and stuff, but for tonight I'll just show you the paintings from the show (I am 1/3 of "Creativity x 3")...
Here goes! (I actually got so busy, I forgot to take photos of two of the pieces before taking them to be framed (thank you again, Marilyn, for all your wonderful framing help)...but they were linocuts, so I will be printing and tinting more, and can photograph them then.)
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This beautiful iris (no painting could ever truly do it justice) is from the garden of some friends' late Grandmother, Mrs. Ruby Oliver..."Miss Ruby" ~ "Maw" ~ had the most spectacular irises that I have ever laid eyes on ~ they must have really thrived in her love for them! Each flower seemed to be more beautiful than the one before it, and I have literally hundreds of photos from her magnificent garden...
I would take pictures and more pictures of a certain iris, and start to go on to the next...but then I would see how the sun filtered through the petals ("standards" ~ the upright ones ~ and "falls", I've learned) of the one I was trying to walk away from, and I would be right back taking more photos from a different angle...
If you just glanced at my file of photos of the irises you would think I had many, many duplicates, but each is a little different...and I couldn't bear to delete any, so finally my daughter Katie put them all on a disc for me...I could do a whole show with just Miss Ruby's irises...(that's an idea for next spring)!
(Thank you again to Miss Ruby's family for letting me photograph her garden...♥)
Oh, see the Iris's little admirer? ...I love to put a little "whimsy" in each painting, either in the actual art, or in the title!
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This painting started out to be just a regular watercolor still-life, then one thing led to another and it told me it wanted to be a "Mixed-Media Collage" like the Stargazer Lilies I did ("Hot August Night")...so, I had a lot of fun collaging on bits and pieces from vintage sheet music (supplied by daughter Katie) as well as more leaves and hydrangea petals cut from separate sheets of watercolor paper that I painted with glazes of acrylics in pinks and purples and greens...
I've found that while easier in the sense that anything can be changed...layer upon layer can be added...collage is much more time-consuming than a regular watercolor!
(Can you find the little firefly that's come inside to rest on this arrangement? I had to add one to this painting, too, after reading about the dwindling number of the flashy little fellows...)
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This was my first attempt at painting silver and super-shiny surfaces!
The cup and saucer is my favorite from my Grandma Launius's collection, and besides being really reflective, it also had an iridescent glaze...it was a challenge, but fun!
And of course, lace is always a favorite...it looks so difficult, but really is the easiest thing in the world...you just paint the little "negative" spaces, and if you happen to make some funny shapes, no one is the wiser!
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Here again is the first painting I did for the show; "Hot August Night"...this one also began as a regular watercolor floral, then I decided I really didn't like how the lower left-hand corner was going...I didn't plan my drawing all that well before starting to paint (sometimes I just can't help myself and jump right in!)...sooo, after "sleeping on" what to do, I decided that I would make it a collage ~ something I had only done once (in watercolor) years ago. I found a little French almanac from 1877~ just a falling-apart little pamphlet, nothing really historic or anything ~ and decided to incorporate it. You know how almanacs have advice and remedies?...This one did, too, and even with my limited French-101-drop-out-ability I could figure out that it had "cure-alls" for insomnia, "melancholy", malaria, dementia...;^)...and so on...
The color of the lilies was so "hot" that by then I already had the title in mind, and the big gold moon and the droning cicadas just sort of fell into place (they really can make one a little crazy by mid-August...and they've already started ~ early this year!
(Oh, the shadows? (Remember, it didn't start out to be night-time...) Moon-glow! Or a really bright street light.)
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"Flim-Flam Flamingo" was the name of a book I had when I was little...and it just came to me after I'd started painting these fine fellows!
A couple of weeks ago we were watching something on Animal Planet about flamingoes, and right then I decided I had to paint them...I didn't have to make up any "whimsy" this time...I think these beautiful creatures are the absolute embodiment of it!
(I'm going to add them to "Beverly's Pink Saturday" and call it a night...I will finish showing you the rest Sunday afternoon!)
To be
continued!...
(Also linking to Cathy's 1929 Charmer's weekly Sunday party, and Savvy Southern Style's Wow-Us Wednesday!)
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