Gallery

This floral portrait came from the same painting session as Bee Balm (also displayed in this section of the Gallery). Like many of my small floral pieces, it features handmade paper with torn edges that emphasize the paper's texture and symbolize the fact that any object is part of a larger whole. This photo clearly shows several shadows radiating out from the flower stem, which resulted from applying the paint with a fairly wet brush and allowing the thin, delicate paper to crinkle up a bit as it dried. That effect pleased me, as did the vulnerable quality of the little pink hearts and the way the green in the stem broke free of its intended structure as it bled into the surrounding white paper.

Bleeding Hearts, watercolor on handmade paper