"Winter Cheer", 8x10, oil, winter, yellow roses, impressionism, windowsill paintings, wintry weather

 "Winter Cheer", 8x10, oil

I haven't painted or posted much in recent months. Hurricane Ian did a lot of destruction to our little town and to our home as well. So my husband and I have been working for days on end trying to get our front and back yard repaired. The storm took down two huge trees (which luckily didn't hit the house) But they created a lot of destruction in the course of their own demise. In addition, our "bird cage" , which is the large aluminum structure that covers and protects our pool and lanai, collapsed and our roof needs to be completely replaced. It's been a lot of work and frustration over the past two months, but I determined to get back to painting recently.

The above painting is my attempt to get looser and less left brained in my approach to painting. I have always enjoyed doing windowsill paintings, which is what I call paintings of florals with a window as a backdrop, and so winter storms up north recently were the inspiration to paint something warm and inviting against a cold wintry background.

I hope to continue to post regularly in the future!

"Simple Abundance", 16x20, oil on linen, hibiscus, red hibiscus, apple, green apple, fish shack

"Simple Abundance", 16x20, oil on linen
Note: Click on the image to see it better!

A few days ago I picked some hibiscus from the garden and arranged them in a vase with some apples. After working at it for a few hours, I was almost finished the flowers and thought they were looking pretty good. Unfortunately, I neglected to take a photo of the set-up and to my dismay the next morning the flowers were all curled up and wilted! So I went back into the garden and brought in some more and tried to set them up in the same way. No chance! It is amazing how every single flower is extremely unique, and since hibiscus is a very complex flower to paint I began feeling frustrated.  I had to basically scrape out most of what I had done the day before and start over. This time I did take a photo of the flowers knowing I'd have to keep working the painting the next day.

Since yesterday was Valentine's Day, I think I had red on the brain. So I added the background after painting the flowers using an old red fish shack from Peggy's Cove. I kind of liked the idea of putting tropical flowers in a northern setting! It was a quirky idea that grew on me as I went along. I added other objects as I went along and finally today I called it done. It was a challenging painting for me, but worth the effort in the end.

Quote:

Life is a flower of which love is the honey. – Victor Hugo

If you’ve seen a Hummingbird suck the nectar out of a Hibiscus flower, you will know what Hugo means when he refers to life as a ‘flower’ and love as ‘honey’.