Gallery

In 2005, on a perfect sunny summer day, a friend had me over to paint together in her studio. Before getting started, we went outside to stroll through the rambling garden she lovingly tends in the gently rolling yard surrounding her Tudor style suburban house. Butterflies and bumblebees accompanied us as we inspected the flowers, noting what had died back completely, what was in decline, what had just reached  perfection, and what stood in bud to offer its beauty in the near future. Periodically, my friend reached into a clump of petaled perfection to snip off a colorful blossom such as this bee balm. Its intense color and pleasing scent inspired me to paint a little floral portrait that day. My choice of handmade blue paper echoes the brilliant blue sky of that day and contrasts with the flower's hot colors. Its slightly fuzzy texture--rather like wool--softened and muted the watercolors, so after it dried the inspiration came to bring up the color and increase the contrast with the soft paper by applying art stix pencil, particularly to create the flower's white tips. The spiky petals, made from a mix of brilliant pink and other watercolors, also benefited from applying art stix pencil: the red pencil not only heightens the flower's color but emphasizes the paper's texture because it creates broken lines and areas of color that let the blue of the paper show through.