I am always ready for Spring each year, and this one is no different! All the signs of new life: the birds chirping and gathering twigs for new nests, the grass turning a bright green and the trees budding and bursting into bloom are all harbingers of the new season. We often get a false spring in January in central Texas, where the temperatures soar into the high 70s. Out come the shorts and sandals, bikes and strollers, and trees, like the redbud, bloom! All around the town are the signs: the red and pink blossoms of the Double Take rose variety, along with California poppies, iris, pansy and pink hawthorne, and many, many other types of flowers. We may be in a drought here, but Mother Nature is funny about Spring...she finds a way to show her colors. The bluebonnets are not as plentiful as in years past, but they are out there, as are the buttercups, the bright yellow daisies, and the wild pale yellow mustard. Living in central Texas is really an amazing experience. From the colorful sunrises to the beautiful sunsets, our lives are filled with color! Blue skies, and every color imaginable is in the landscape. I grew up on the Gulf coast and knew the beauty of an early Spring, when the daffodils and jonquils, sweet peas, flowering quince and pink magnolias, otherwise known as tulip trees, made their presence known in February. Winter meant rain, and that it did in Jefferson County...almost every day. So you can imagine how glorious the Springs were! When the camellias and azaleas made their appearance, I really didn't think it could possibly get any better. I was shocked at the number of wildflowers in the fields of central Texas when I came here as a college student, so many years ago.
I love flowers, and cut flowers from roses to lilies are the epitome of abundance, very much like fresh raspberries. They are fragile and don't last very long, but while they are here they provide such vivid color and bring to mind so many feelings of joy. I received a beautiful bouquet and marvelled at the various flowers in it. Knowing full well their days were numbered, I decided to photograph them as well as paint them in a traditional watercolor technique on Arches 140-pound CP watercolor paper. They were a joy to gaze upon, to drink in the beauty, as well as to do my best to capture their beautiful essence. I call this painting 3 - 2 - 1, Spring has Sprung.
Once I finished 3 - 2 - 1, Spring has Sprung, I really felt that I had to try to do justice to the Texas wildflowers, so I began an acrylic work that was painted from memory, as well as from photographs taken in the countryside along the Willow Loop, where so many varieties of flowers burst forth each Spring. In memory painting, the details are smudged, and it is more of an impression of the flowers' essence. I wanted to capture the dead grassy undergrowth that is still dormant in early Spring, along with the shoots of very green grass and the leaves and foliage of the various flowers.
Because it is a memory painting, the mature dandelion thistles are present among the other flowers, even though in Nature it might be weeks before they would scatter their seeds from the lacy puffs. This, too, was painted n 22 X 30 inch Arches 140-pound CP paper, with Liquitex acrylic paint. When I finished the painting compositionally, one thistle dominated the landscape and was literally too large. I reduced its size by painting into the negative space around the thistle. I was happier with the flowers overall, but felt it did not work well compositionally. It lacked balance.
After looking at it for several days, photographing it and generally using my editor's eye, I made the decision to cut the painting in half, making two 11 X 15 paintings. Each of these smaller paintings has a more pleasing and satisfactory design element. Depicted here are the two finished paintings, Shazam 1 and Shazam 2. They could be matted and hung as a grouping, but would work equally well hung individually. These works would be considered tonal paintings. They were painted as if it were a rainy day, or first light, or even possibly last light, when the natural light is lower and the details of the flowers are less discernable.
For individuals like me, who suffer from seasonal asthma, Spring, with all of her fragrant abundance, brings the 'gift' of awakened allergies. Riding in my car with the top down, with the wind blowing in my face, is a luxury that I can ill afford. I cannot take an inhaled breath of Spring's fabulous bouquet without ingesting the flowers' pollen, and sneezing for days afterward. This year the oak pollen has been at an all-time high, covering the sidewalks, grass and cars with its old gold green catkins. When it rains, it knocks the pollen out of the air, but the wet seed pods need to be swept away, or they will stain everything a dirty brown color. Oak bloom, as it is lovingly called, also plays havoc with my ability to breathe, talk, and laugh without coughing at length. So, to pay homage to the complete picture that Spring brings to me, with her blossoms of fabulous and amazing color, I have completed a traditional watercolor on Arches 140-pound CP rag paper called An Ode to Spring.
The picture plane is filled with many imagined forms of the various pollens that fill our air and torment those who have lived in our fair city for any length of time. This painting completes my personal celebration of Spring, and captures all the facets of the flora extraordinaire...all the good and the somewhat evil characteristics. It could be said that the pollen is Mother Nature's little irony for us mortals...a real 'gotcha!'
