taking time to smell the flowers...

In celebrating spring and moving into summer now, I've taken some time to really look and smell the flowers and what I've found is that I'm even more drawn to them this year. The way the wind softly blows through them (or rips through them as it sometimes does here in the Berkshires) I'm enjoying the movement of flowers. It's something I hadn't really paid attention to before. Maybe it has something to do with how much more time I'm devoting to gardening this year. In addition to my flower beds, we've added a vegetable garden this year with raised beds. At any rate, drawing and painting flowers and vegetables has become interesting to me when I think of them as living things, rather than still life material. I love the opportunity to really study them. I'm concentrating on developing my skills to bring this sense of movement and aliveness to my painting.

simplicity...

I'm working on supplying a local inn with paintings; they are interested in simplicity and expressions of the every day in a new way. That in turn is bringing me back to a simpler time in my own art making. Lately I've been focused on mixed media pieces with a lot going on and bright colors. However, creating the simpler paintings like this one, had a calming effect on me in the last week. While I don't think I'll linger here too long, it's been a nice week of painting. It's interesting how subject matter, color and design effect us while we are creating art. The emotions stirred up during the creative process end up reflected back into the artwork. It's all a cycle I guess and one of the beautiful things about making art. I learn more about myself through my paintings every day. Here's to experimenting!