Month: June 2019

Friday Flower Sketches

I’ve been playing with gouache of late, but really have missed watercolor and its transparency.  Yesterday I thought I would sit down to do some painting, but it never happened.  Today, out on the patio reading a book, I looked around at all the plants, and realized, duh!  There is a lot to play with out here!

I’d moved all my orchids outside to water and air out a bit.  This is the last of the blooming phalenopsis, so I painted it – no pencil or preliminary value studies – just direct watercolor and let it happen.  I can tell by the awkward handling of the paint I am out of practice; as well, the paper is not the best, but that is what sketch books are for.

About 6 weeks ago I took all my old and new flower seeds and planted them helter-skelter.  These are zinnias, plants which are notorious for wilting with not enough water – like in a couple of hours they can look like they will just fall over – but come back miraculously with a bit of help.  Totally crack me up – such simple flowers to be so demanding.  Kind of nervy.  Anyway, what I like about them is that they have beautifully shaped leaves, lovely stems, and smallish bright flowers that burst out of all the green surrounding them.  Here, a bit better handling, with a use of negative painting to create the leaves and perhaps a bit of dimension.

Finally, my favorite of the bunch.  Brush control and forethought.  Here I was perched on a rather tall chair, looking down onto the pot of scaveola, a sort of creeper from what I can observe.  It has a variety of leaf shapes, and the purple flowers sort of send out petals from behind the leaves in a peek-a-boo fashion.  I took a photo of this for Instagram, but you can also see the photo below of plant and sketch, taken with my phone.

 

Topsy-Turvy, Crazy-Making Chaos

Well, maybe not that bad.  But, there are just some days when the proverbial best laid plans of mice and men totally fall apart and you wonder what the hell is going on.

Today was that kind of a day.  I had to make a phone call for some medical stuff – no  call returned, but I’ll push it more later on.  A friend is being badly treated at work – trying to help her figure out what to do in the sea of contract breech and lies.  Then there were the plans to paint which produced crap.  And a lack of sleep at night and an interrupted nap mid-afternoon.  And then, I have just discovered that steel-cut oats make for a wonderful savory addition to a meal and are not as weird as I thought they would be – they paired really well with tonight’s salmon, fermented mango sauce, tzatziki, and salad.  I mean, that is just too strange for my “oatmeal for breakfast” mentality.

The whole day felt really unproductive and messy.  Somewhere I read that for the French, their verb “etre” (to be) is how they live – more in the moment.  English speakers, on the other hand, live by the verb “to do.”  Life in the English-speaking world is accomplished by things checked off on a list, written or mental.  I really like the idea of living more immediately – flexible to adapt, able to plan, able to accomplish and not accomplish.  The French are smart in that way, if such is true.  I just felt crazy all day!

It is so funny how a culture is determined by words and verbs and habits.  Americans are descended from Puritans – the Australians from criminals!  What a contrast – rules and fear and conformity versus rebelling against society out of need or perversity.  When everything does NOT go as planned, what can you do?  Just kick back and laugh, think about it, and move on.  In the end, I had a quite enjoyable – if unpredictable – day!