Stone and a Rainy Day

I watched Franco Zeffirelli's "Romeo and Juliet" the other night with my daughter who will be acting in the play this summer. Though the movie was made in 1968 it didn't seem dated. Amazing. I think that part of the reason it looked so contemporary was that hairstyles in 1968 were exactly the same as they are today. Young Leonard Whiting playing Romeo was a dead ringer for Chase Crawford or Zac Efron or one of those young heart throbs. The other reason it didn't seem dated was, of course, that it was so beautifully made.

I mention the movie because I have been thinking about stone this week. Zeffirelli shot so many beautiful scenes in Italian towns rich with Renaissance stonework and cobbled streets. At times I enjoyed the scenery as much at the dialogue. I love European stonework, from the dry stone walls of Northern England to the ochre colored crumbling plaster of Bologna. Here in the Pacific Northwest we tend to use wood to build our houses and garden walls but I have some stone elements in my garden.

There is a slate patio in the front of my house,wet with rain as I photographed it today.


There are concrete steps into which my children left their hand prints and which have the added decoration of fallen cherry petals in todays rain storm.


There is a brick patio behind my house which grows wonderful moss in the cracks between each brick. To an ant (or pillbug) this moss is a giant hedgerow.


My terracotta plant pots must wish they were back in sunny Italy instead of damp and mossy Seattle.




I have been thinking about stone and using it for inspiration on a mural commissioned by a corporate client. They wanted a list of slogans and words about communication and they requested a distressed look. I thought of old Italian walls glowing with layers of ochres and umbers and burnt sienna. I prepared the canvases with various textures simulating stone and years of history.






We artists always enjoy a little bit of subversion so this admonition toward authenticity painted on a faux Italian wall makes me smile.

My client likes things old and Italian, as do I, so she seemed pleased with the end result of this mural. I recommeded that she watch Romeo and Juliet and we hummed the theme song together.

Tulips in a Different Light

Photographed a day after my last post, this tulip just gets better and better. OK so it may seem a little unusual to take pleasure in a dying flower, but isn't it cool?






Here is another unusual way of looking at tulips that may seem crazy to some people. I love walking past this "tulip lawn" a block from my house.

Tulips!!!

Tulips are great, especially when we are as color starved as we are this time of year. I am specially drawn to parrot tulips with thier wonderful complexities. And I like what happens to tulips when they age. The colors intensify and the petals take on more character.







This is the first year I have grown Fritillaria Imperialis and I love them. My flash went off accidentally while taking this photo resulting in this strange image. The white dots are not, in fact, holes but simply white dots. Isn't it marvelous.




See more tulips at this lovely blog from England "Yarnstorm".

Twist and Shout

I painted this lazy susan in about an hour! It was so refreshing since I have been feeling bogged down lately by paintings that take weeks to finish - and some that never seem to get finished at all. Everything is taking so long these days and I have been feeling lazy and unproductive. Hooray for dancing weasels who never take themselves too seriously. I have called this lazy susan "Twist and Shout" (can a lazy susan have a name?). It will be auctioned at my son's school auction along with the child generated paintings in the last post.

Dance! Sing! Laugh! Twist and Shout!

Twelve Year Old Artists

Parents of Seattle public school kids will know that it is the season for little league baseball, shopping trips for summer clothing and the dreaded school auctions. Our schools are sadly underfunded and many schools supplement their budgets with funds raised from families through events like auctions. This year I contributed to my son's school auction by organizing the sixth grade art project and got each child to paint a flower from our Seattle gardens. Mothers brought in helebore, anemonies, tulips and whatever else they had in their gardens which the kids painted in acrylic on gold leaf. I instructed everyone to focus on the shape of the plant and to work slowly "like a scientist making an observation". I was so impressed with the intensity of focus the kids showed. The results are obvious. Wow. You can click on a picture to see it in detail and try to identify each flower. They are so full of character and not "generic flowers" at all.



After the individual paintings were finished I took them home and cut out each flower and glued them onto a couple of panels. (A crazy amount of work, I know)
Here is Henry's painting.



The end result is reminiscent of Dutch and Flemish still life paintings from seventeenth century, like the one below by Jan van Huysum. Well maybe not reminiscent, but at least a similar idea.


I am also reminded of the innocent exuberance of a nineteenth century Baltimore album quilt like the one below.

A Challenge

A while ago I saw a painting at Roq la Rue gallery by Christian van Minnen (on the left, below) that reminded me of another painting by English painter Richard Wathen. I told a friend about the similarity and he challenged me to paint a self portrait using the same elements: a strangely shaped black hat, green background, orange clothing and brown fur. He is doing one too but I haven't seen it yet.

It was fun painting a person after working with plants and animals for so long. Looking so closely at my own face wasn't so much fun...but artists have to be tough. I feel inspired to work with more images of people now, but I want to include plants too. And after today's sunshine there will be lots in the garden to inspire me.

Click on any of these to see them bigger. My painting measures 11"x14" and is oil on panel.

It's Been a Long Winter

8"x10" oil on panel

The Last Winter Painting of the Season?

I am not sure this painting is finished but I am tired of looking at that lily bulb on this blog so here is what I am working on. Any day now (!) it will be spring and I won't feel like painting these snowy scenes. I don't have a name for this yet but it is about the peace and solitude of winter. The plants are cardoon, ivy geranium and the marvelous black pussy willows that my new pal gave me from her garden. See her blog at www.lifeontigermountain.blogspot.com

You can click on this painting above to see the details better. There are more bunnies but they are abandoning the scene and only the solitary bunny pauses to look at me. Or maybe I am the solitary bunny and I am pausing to look at you! Ooo. Deep.

Three Things I Learned at the Garden Show

I learned a few things at the Northwest Flower and Garden Show this week. The first thing was that lily bulbs can be really big. And that I am powerless to resist buying them. This one is African Queen and it will be "rich orange with a burgundy reverse". I think I would like that to be the description of my life.

The second important thing that I learned was that heathers, that old garden stand-by available at Home Depot, are not heathers at all but "heaths". This is of concern to me as I feel it should have been part of my Scottish heritage to know this. The true heathers that cover the Scottish highlands are "Calluna vulgaris" and the shopping mall parking lot heaths are "Ericas". Callunas have scale-like leaves while Ericas have more of a needle. Or as the nice guy from Heaths and Heathers in Shelton told me "Heather = feather. Heath = teeth" I feel much more Scottish now! This is Calluna "Silver Knight"


The third thing I learned at the garden show was that spending too many hours in the dark and cavernous belly of the Trade and Convention Center leaves me feeling like this. Maybe the show will be reincarnated at an outdoor space some time in the future.
(Moss head photo by Dutch artist Levi van Veluw)

Abalone

This (hopefully) scientifically accurate painting of Pinto Abalone will be auctioned by the Puget Sound Restoration Fund to raise money to help increase abalone populations. The Pinto is the only abalone native to this area and is smaller and bumpier than the more southern varieties. I enjoyed painting the bubble gum pink algae covering the rock and the shells. It really is this color!

Bloggers Meet Up

Hello to my fellow Seattle garden bloggers who I met at our recent gathering. It was so much fun to meet the real people behind the blogs. Thanks to Karen at Greenwalks for organizing. Everyone is welcome to join us next time, Sunday 22 March.

Read all about it at Karen's blog and Melanthia's blog.

See you all next time!

Three Scarlet Gardens

I have been immersed in the delicate browns, greys and whites of winter and enjoying painting these colors. Today, though, waking up to more snow and cold, I crave something hotter. There are three gardens in my life right now that all offer me a flash of scarlet. First, outside amid the frost blasted grey rosemary and crumpled black flax plants I have indulged in some grocery store primulas and a single pansy. Scarlet! I will probably get them planted into the ground eventually, but even if I don't they are doing their job of warming me up.

The second garden bringing heat to my color palette is an indoor bowl of amaryllis, looking pretty good against my newly painted dark grey kitchen wall.


And the third garden is an underwater collection of plants and animals at the Seattle Aquarium where I have been researching abalone for a painting. I think this is kelp, either giant or bull.


Aren't they all a perfect tonic for the cold weather! Franky Scarlet I DO give a damn.

Bunny in Winter Fog

There was a lot of fog here last week. And snow last month. Here in the heart of winter I want to paint the feeling of isolation that settles in our hearts and homes. I am not really blue. Winter, here in my world, is peaceful. There is beauty in the bareness of things.

This painting is called "Solitude" and is 9"x12" oil on panel.

Winter Nest

Just north of Seattle, in the Skagit Valley, is an area of swampy grassland shared in the early winter by migrating snow geese and trumpeter swans. The sight of hundreds of these large white animals is breathtaking. The swans, though fewer than the geese, are huge and impossibly white against the brown landscape.

This painting is a visual interpretation of how I feel this winter. I leave the house as seldom as possible. I turn on the gas fire, fluff up the couch cushions and watch videos with my children. I am nesting. Outside it starts to become dark at 3 or 4 in the afternoon. The sun feels absent as it creeps sluggishly across the horizon, hidden behind a smothering felt of clouds and everything in the garden seems grey or brown. Like the swan in my painting, I am keeping a wary eye open for dangers like the winter blues, that creep up on folks this time of year and sap us of our joie de vivre.

So far both the swan and I are safe in our nests. The landscape, while cold, is beautiful. We are waiting.






There are some wonderful photos of these swans and snow geese at www.pbase.com/duke1938

Beauty Berry

I cannot walk past a Callicarpa this time of year without stopping to smile. Relentlessly cheerful, kind of goofy, the startlingly purple berries are a tonic on these dark grey days. I want one in my own garden! Fortunately Swanson's says they will have them bare root next month.

New Year's Day

Henry and I harvested our potatoes and carrots on New Year's Day. Funny to think that a week ago the ground was frozen and under snow. It felt good getting rid of slimy leaves and stems from the devastated annuals and I felt a little guilty, knowing that by comparison, our friends and family in Eastern Canada will have to wait months for the ground to thaw. The climate is so forgiving here in Seattle. Today I hope to get my autumn bulbs planted!
Happy New year!