Not As Busy As A Bee

The bees are absolutely in love with the salvia in my garden. I don't remember planting this particular salvia where it is. Tall salvia at the very front of a flower bed? Hmmm. I constructed a Dr. Seuss-type rhyme it in my head.

I did not plant them there at all. 

I'd never plant something there so tall.

But the salvia is there and the bees loves it and that makes me happy.

So the bees have been busy but I haven't, at least not in a normal way. The past month has been a bit odd.

In mid-May, I injured my neck while pruning the sides of the tall cedars that surround our garden. It seemed like a normal strain at first but then, a week later, I woke up with neck spasms which I had never experienced before and don't wish on anyone. If I needed a reminder of the neck's function, I had it. It's involved in most every movement. I couldn't drink a glass of water, look down to to gauge my steps on the stairs or do pretty much anything else without triggering a painful spasm. Within a two-hour period, I had forty spasms. I saw a doctor and after two days of medication, the spasms disappeared. Unfortunately, the ongoing stiffness and occasional pain didn't.

In late May, Chloé was sick for over a week with a bad virus. That was worrisome. She missed a week of school and two final exams. We were very relieved when she finally started to feel better.

The week after Chloé was sick, I had to have an unexpected biopsy. I am happy to say that the biopsy results came back negative although my brain has taken several days to regain its focus. Oh stress, you are powerful!

My neck? Well, it's much better than it was but still not normal. It makes me feel grumpy and frustrated. I am going to see a physical therapist on Monday. I realize how much I took it for granted as now I am very conscious of its movement.

I didn't paint for four weeks. I've been on social media only in a sporadic way. Partly because of my neck. Partly because I had lost my focus with everything else going on. I've done bits of things. Bits of gardening. Bits of computer work. Bits of admin work on my shop. I've missed things. I'm sorry.

Yesterday, I realized that this whole not painting thing was not going to solve itself. I just had to start painting again--maybe in shorter sessions. Then I couldn't decide what to paint. It's amazing how not painting for a while can do a number on your head, or at least mine. I start to feel like I can't paint. So I decided to work on an unfinished painting of irises that had been waiting in my drawer. It felt really good to have a paintbrush in my hand again. I've always loved irises so this is the perfect subject to ease me back into my painting routine. And guess what? I still can paint!

All of this is not to complain, just to explain and share. I look forward to painting, posting and participating more in the weeks ahead! Here's a little poem in honour of my busy garden friends.

The Bee

by Arthur Guiterman

Little chemic-artisan,
Doing work no other can,
Deep in dewy nectaries,
Petal-walled refectories- 
Apple-blossom, columbine,
Rose and lily, all are thine,
Yet, though oft thy weight they bear,
Dost thou know how they are fair?
Thine are sun and Summer breeze- 
Hast thou aught of joy in these?

Pollen-yellow dumbledore,
Leave thy clovers tumbled o'er!
What's a lily? What's a rose?
Down the golden lane he goes,
Drowsing forth a prosy song,
'Honey! Honey!' all day long,
Wasting life's diviner sweet,
Hiving food for drones to eat.
Oh, thou silly, silly bee!
Idle here and learn of me! 

🐝  🐝  🐝  🐝  🐝

A Very Special Painting

When I received the message on Facebook this past summer, I remember reading it with my hand over my heart. Andra introduced herself as the mother of a little girl who had recently died of cancer, a day before her sixth birthday. She wondered if I would do a painting in memory of her daughter.

My initial reaction was that I couldn’t possibly do it. It seemed so sad. I thought that doing the painting would make me feel sad. Then I reread her message.

The girl she was describing was a joyous and happy person. Andra listed the colors she liked best: pink, red, yellow, light blue and green. She told me how Helen loved flowers, ladybugs, rolly-pollies, butterflies, birds, the beach and sea creatures. She said that she wanted the painting to include Helen’s name as well as some of her loves.

I realized that this was a very happy painting she was describing.  Helen enjoyed so many of the same things that I do. She was someone who loved nature and who thoroughly appreciated the world around her. The list of Helen’s likes included many of the things I love to paint the most.

I wrote back to Andra and, over a series of emails, we came to an agreement that I would do a painting for Helen. She wanted a painting that was larger than I usually do. After much thought, I committed to doing a 16 x 20 inch watercolour.

Andra was lovely throughout the process. She left the visual side of the painting entirely up to me. I showed her the initial rough sketch I had come up with and then she very, very patiently waited to see the final version. The painting took me several weeks to complete.

My initial rough sketch when I was trying to figure out the contents and composition.

I started by painting the banner and then began adding all of the other elements.

Slowly but surely, I added all of the creatures and flowers.

With most of main elements in place, I started to pull the sky down and behind the flowers.

This watercolour was an absolute joy to work on but it also was a lot of work. Its size, the number of things it included made it one of the most complex paintings I have worked on in a very long while. The detailed sketch alone took me two days. I don’t generally do detailed sketches but this painting required it. By the time I finished the painting, I realized I had looked at almost 50 reference photos in order to be sure that I was being true to all of the creatures and flowers I had included. In my research, I even found a flower that is called ‘Helen’s Flower’ (Helenium). It’s the yellow flower on the left and right (visible in the full view of the painting). The shell, sea urchin and starfish were all from my seashell collection. Some of my garden flowers were used as models.

A detail from the centre of the painting

Details from the bottom of the painting - A snail, mushrooms, a heart-shaped rock and three rollie-pollies playing together on the rocks at the right hand side.

It was so important to me to create something that was not just a good painting but something that was appropriate to and worthy of Helen’s memory. I wanted to create a painting that Helen would have loved.

Do you want to know something? I didn’t feel sad once while working on this painting. I felt happy. As I was working on it, I found myself thinking ‘Wouldn’t it have been nice to have met Helen and then I realized I did. I had met Helen “through” my painting.

After I sent photos of the completed painting to Andra, she responded within minutes:  “Oh, my goodness...It is absolutely beautiful! Helen would have loved it! The painting is soooo Helen…” Mission accomplished. I had created a painting that was true to Helen. I burst into happy tears.

When I asked Andra's permission to do this blog post about my painting and the story behind it, she said she would only agree if people didn’t feel sorry for Helen or her family. She said “Helen was so joyful and happy, she must be remembered that way too.”

My painting was done for a beautiful, joyful little girl who loved the world and all those around her. This painting is a celebration of a wonderful person named Helen.

A Mermaid's Tale

We have just come back from a glorious week beside the ocean in Maine. Two days at home and my head is still back in Maine with the mermaids, sea birds and beach glass.

Mermaids, you ask? Well, the only one I was able to get a photo of was a beautiful sand sculpture made by Emma and her cousin, Erica. But I think there's a possibility that there were other mermaids lingering behind the rocks just beyond my camera's reach.

Emma and Erica's beautifully sculpted mermaid complete with seaweed hair.

We rented a house with my sister's family. We spent many hours walking on the rocky beach in front of where we stayed. Each tide would bring in more sea glass, enough to share with everyone who was there.

My collection of sea glass and pottery. The most amazing find was the glass stopper pictured on the right.

It turns out that Emma has an eagle eye for finding sea glass. Even after the rest of us had combed the beach thinking we had found it all, Emma would find pocketsful of sea glass treasures.

And speaking of eagles, we saw one!  A bald eagle flew by on more than one occasion. Once, it flew within feet of the front porch. I don't have a photo of it that time. We just stood there awestruck. Here's a photo of it a little higher up in the sky on one of its fly-bys.

We also saw loons, herons and seagulls. I took a series of photos of one heron looking for and catching his supper.

I've started a painting of some of my beautiful beach finds. It's a way of me staying in touch with our beautiful Maine vacation while I slowly get used to being back home.

This painting is still in progress. A few more details to go.

Uh oh. It's happening again. There go my thoughts, somewhere back in Maine with the mermaids, beach glass and sea birds.

On my painting table this week

What was on my painting table this week: my finished amaryllis, my maybe-finished pomegranates and the beginning of a seashell painting.

I worked on the seashells a little more this afternoon.

Taken in the evening so everything has a bit of a yellow glow from the light.

I had a lot of trouble getting myself up to the studio this past week: appointments, car trouble, mother duty and sometimes just getting stuck on the computer chair.

I'm going to try and do things the other way around this week. Painting first. We'll see how it goes.

Gusts and Blooms

There have been a couple of days recently when I have sat inside the house and watched the weather change in a rapid, extreme way. I get this feeling that I'm trapped inside some sort of bubble (like a snow globe) and there is a mad scientist* outside spinning the weather dial. Yesterday, we experienced driving rain, melting snow, sunshine, ferocious winds, flaky falling snowflakes and plummeting temperatures--all within a few hours.  Have you been having weather like that?  I went out for a walk with Meeko in the afternoon and came back early because the trees were bending so much with the wind at that point that I thought it wasn't wise to continue.

Odd weather makes for good days to hunker down in the studio and paint. My amaryllis painting is coming along--still in progress but almost there.  It's come a long way from its pale beginning.  The blooms on my plant have started to wilt so I am so happy that I took several photos of it. I was thrilled this morning to see that another stem is starting to grow from the base so I will have more beautiful flowers to admire in the weeks ahead.

Thanks everyone for the oh-so-kind comments on my last post. I am very lucky to have such a lovely group of online friends. I also appreciate those who come to read and don't have the time or inclination to leave a comment. To show my appreciation, I am thinking about having a giveaway sometime this month--perhaps a small original.

Meeko and I have the house to ourselves for many hours today. Jocelyn, Emma and Chloé are going to be away for the day and most of the evening--all going in different directions. I feel a little bit giddy with the thought of all that time to myself. I'll paint during the day but I'm not sure what I'll do with my evening. Perhaps a Downton Abbey marathon if Meeko agrees. I think he will. He's enjoyed the episodes so far, as he likes the canine cast members especially when they bark.

Happy February and happy weekend! ❤

*unfortunately I think that 'mad scientist' is foolish mankind

On Age and Amaryllis Bulbs

Well, hello there! I feel like my January is just beginning. Emma went back to school on Monday after a month-long break. So the house is mine again during the days. I don't mean that in a selfish way. I just find it easier to concentrate when I'm alone.

I made it up to my studio yesterday and actually painted. It's so hard after a long break. I get weirdly scared and then everything is fine again, once I get a paintbrush back into my hand. I started to paint an amaryllis bud that had just started to open. I've never grown an amaryllis bulb before. I don't know why. They are so simple to grow. It was included as a bonus when I ordered a bunch of tulip bulbs in the autumn.

And look what I found when I walked up my studio stairs today! I gasped out loud. So extraordinarily beautiful! Its name is 'Rosalie'.  I think I'll do another painting of it.

January just seems to be slipping by. I might have been quiet here but lots was going on. Chloé went back to school on the 8th so she is already busy with school projects and extra-curricular basketball practices and tournaments. Emma started her new term of CEGEP (Quebec's unique college for Grade 12 and 13 students) yesterday. She has recently started taking driving lessons. She had her hair cut--over ten inches which she is giving to a local foundation that makes wigs for children with cancer. She looks so very grown up and beautiful with her new haircut. I sold an original painting out of my studio last week which was a wonderful thing. I've also joined a number of treasury teams on Etsy and have become a leader of one of them. I'm really glad to be back painting and my challenge will be to make sure that my social media accounts (Facebook and Twitter can be such time holes) and Etsy involvement are kept balanced so I can keep producing new work--well, because that's where the joy is.

Chloé made a beautiful family tree for her Spanish class. She used metallic silver and gold markers on black bristol board and cut out photos of apples to represent each person. The class had to present their family trees in front of the class and describe their family members including their ages. I cringed when I heard that. I'm sure I'm the oldest, or one of the oldest, mothers in the class. How did I get so sensitive about this age thing? I surprise myself sometimes. 

Actually last year, my private new year's resolution (and we don't tend to choose the easy things, do we?) was to embrace my age more fully. I don't think I was very successful and here I am a year later and a year older! There's nothing much we can do, is there? Even though there is much talk these days about age acceptance, I'm not always sure it's true. Youth does seem to be revered more than age. And as an artist who relaunched her career in her fifties (there I said it!), I think I worry about being pegged or ignored because of my age. I was very interested in reading Lisa Congdon's blog post this week. It really resonated with me even though I am a full decade older than she is. There, I'm getting very brave, aren't I? And now I will go look at my blog stats and see if my readers are running for the hills.

Here's a special somebody who doesn't care how old I am. I'm willing to bet he loves me just the way I am and almost as much as he loves snow.

Poppy Painting in Progress

I've been happily painting the past few days. I was asked to create a painting as a special Christmas gift for someone. I have used five different reference photos to create my composition!

What you see here is my first day's work on it. It has changed since. I've added some poppy seed heads and  a few more flowers. There is lots still to do on it, adding layers of colour and detail.  These photos will really give you a sense of how I start with very light washes. The lavender sweetpeas look like floral phantoms at this point but they will slowly acquire dimension and texture. I will also deepen the poppies' colour and add texture to their petals.

The hardest part of this painting was before I'd even picked up my paintbrush. I spent a couple of hours sifting through photos (some provided by my client, some of my own) and did a lot of thinking before coming up with a composition that would work artistically and also be of emotional significance for the recipient. I'm always a bit nervous doing paintings for others. It's important that I create something that pleases me but, most of all, them. I'm happy to say that I've already received a lovely note from my client about my progress so far.

It's not the first time I've painted poppies. I posted a long time ago about a painting I did on my honeymoon of a poppy field in France. I even included a photo of a younger me sitting in the middle of a field while I painted.

It's also not the first time I've painted a row of flowers. You just need to look at my blog header to see that. :)  And there was the painting of wildflowers that I finished last year. It is available in my Etsy shop as a print.  A row of tangled flowers is probably one of my favourite kinds of paintings to paint.

Wildflowers on 14 x 10 inch Arches 300 lb. cold-pressed paper

A Painting Flies to France

In June, a friend of mine asked if I would be willing to do a painting for her that she would give to friends in France when she visited them this summer.  She wanted me to do a painting of their garden. That sounded like something I would like to do so I said yes. She obtained photos and gave three of them to me telling me to choose the one I preferred. Two of the photos focused mostly on a large, lovely coral-toned bungalow with a pool running the length of it. I chose the photo that showed a peek of the house and pool but more of the garden--an interesting tropical mixture of palm trees, pruned shrubs and flowers. And I have to say, those palm trees surprised me! When I think of a French garden, I have a different picture in my head--I guess mostly because we've visited the less temperate zones of France.

If you have ever done a commissioned work, you'll know about the extra pressure it carries. In this case there was a double level:  I wanted my friend to be happy with the painting as well as the final recipients.  It's also challenging to work from someone else's photo (no two photographer's eyes are the same) of a place you've never visited.  Plus I never want to simply replicate a photo.  So I found myself holding my breath a lot when I did this painting.

Meeko gave me moral support.  He is getting better at resting quietly in my studio while I paint, although he is still a work in progress too.

I tried to be true to most of the details of the scene while still making it look like one of my paintings. I infused it with more light. I guessed at some architectural features that were hidden by foliage in the photo. I tried to give it a happy feeling.  I've shown you a few photos so you can see its progress as I built up the detail.  The painting took me several days.

Painting of Cap Ferret House & Garden - Final Version

I delivered the painting to my friend last Friday. She was pleased and I got a big hug. The painting travelled with her to France on the weekend and sometime in the next two weeks, it will be given to her friends. My fingers are crossed that they will be happy with my interpretation of their lovely property.

*  *  *  *  *

When we were in New York, I was able to visit Anthropologie for the first time. I think I was grinning the whole time I was there. What a lovely store. I bought myself that beautiful yellow and blue mug in the top photo. And I also bought Geninne's gorgeous 'Write Everyday' Journal.