Blog

I’ve made progress on the 4 part series where I play with the colour changes through out the growing season. I used the same composition, but provided some variation in the values(lightness/darkess) of the different shapes that make up the composition.

In the previous post,  I wrote about the very light snowy scene Winter in the Meadow.

The next painting, Lupins!, is basically the same composition but showing May when the lupins bloom. The meadow has been filled in with rich medium dark green plant leaves. The native lupins are a medium dark blue-violet. In the actual meadow it is a subtle scene because of the lack of light/dark contrast between the flowers and the leaves. This becomes easy to convey in the meadow shape as green and violet are both easily to darkened yet retain enough colour intensity.

The first meadow blooms are a thrill, hence the the cheeriness in the sky. Hurray Spring!

(At the moment, I am planning on just the 4 in the series, but I could easily include another for  June with the sunny and raucous coreopsis.) 

Then the Bergamot Haze of July follows showing the cloud of pale red violet. Bergamot is airy with finger-like petals curving gracefully upwards presenting the soft haze over the meadow. The first few years after seeding the meadow were droughts. But without any watering the Bergamot never failed to bloom. Such a delicate colour for such a tough plant. 

Are those stylized wisps of cloud or jet trails in the sky? You can decide. They were fun for me.   Depending on the work, I will think of the sky as a big playground for using the art tools. There are 16 items on my list to choose from when something is needed - the 'je ne sai quoi' moment.  But more on that another time.

Lazy hazy days of Summer (sigh!). Can't wait.

Lupins!

Bergamot Haze