Old country houses, castles, abandoned churches – all returning to the earth – and the abundance and destructiveness of nature, relentlessly taking over that which is not cared for, in Nature’s own fecund rabidity.
Okay, enough of that! Rambling vines and roses, grapes, trellises – flowers cascading everywhere in profusion and fragrance. That’s my kind of garden. If there is a relic or two along with the plants, I think that is a pretty cool mix!
World Watercolor Month 2019 continues, and amazingly, I have been able to keep up with the daily prompts, even with plumbers tearing out and fixing a leak, and just other life things that conspire to keep me from painting! Some paintings are quick and easy to do, but others may involve several hours, especially the ones in gouache. Some are easy to do in that ideas come to mind rather quickly, others more challenging. For instance, the 13th one is “Glassy” – glass? mirrors? reflections on glassy water? Those are the challenges – how to interpret the prompt. The interpretation can be literal or figurative.
Here are my interpretations for prompts 7 through 12.
WWM #7: Shiny Things – Reflections on the Ocean
Right now, most of my art supplies are hidden in shelves inside boxes! Funny how things just vanish. I am really frustrated in some ways, and rather amused in others. I still have to make a final choice in paint for the damaged wall, but that is easy enough. The real work is repairing the wall, putting in the drywall, mud, tape, sanding, taping, painting, painting, painting, moving back in . . . leaks are expensive, not just in money, but in time. Oh well!
This one had me pondering . . . a good book, flowers, painting. In the end, I thought of what seems to give me the most pleasure. The natural world, flowers, plants – the world outside that is simply there. Sometimes we manipulate it, such as by planting flowers, and other times it is just being itself, chaotic nature.
Here, sunflowers. A family member was in Las Vegas when the earthquakes of July 4 and 5 hit the Los Angeles area. Her pool sloshed over, inundating her garden with salty, chlorinated water. She lost a lot of plants. I had sent her a picture of some sunflowers she had given me, soon to bloom, and that is when I found out she had lost her plants. My idea was to (maybe) paint some sunflowers for her, but unfortunately these did not turn out too well. Still, there was the idea and the pleasure of painting sunflowers . . .
Here, Joshua Trees. I really get a bang out of these crazy-looking plants, which are very limited in their topographical area for survival, and as the world warms (it really isn’t, per the government), these plants are becoming endangered. When the US government shut down, Joshua Tree National Monument (or Park?) was heavily vandalized. Many of these trees take centuries to get big – and then some fool decides they are fair game to destroy.
The natural world is one filled with simple pleasures for our delight. Some delight in destroying things of beauty, wrecking the work of time. To me, this is a really sad, pathetic statement about human beings, but then there are those who also work to save our natural world before it disappears. I am very grateful for these heroes who work to save the simple pleasures of the natural world.
Pretty lurid, wouldn’t you say? I would, for sure!
I scanned this painting, and in Lightroom and Photoshop, pushed and pulled the colors until they were off the chart – but got the effect I wanted. Tropical fish in the deep sea have so many magical colors. I like it much, much better than the original. And, it is interesting what one can do in the computer age – certainly I could not have accomplished this with my current sets of paints.
Gotta swim in the digital world now and again!
Ink, Yarn & Beer 