This piece came from Paulettes’ photo – a rhody from her garden.
As we looked through her collection of potentials, I kept suggesting she paint this one. Finally after the umpteenth “nah,” I sais, “I’ll paint it then!” She offered me to “go ahead.”
The light is so soft and there’s hardly a more lovely background in all my work.
This is the second of two small paintings I did in 2016, to help me keep a promise to paint every day that year. Painted referring to a printed image (no electronic devices) and a tiny palette of a few favorite paints. They are “unplugged” paintings – something to work on when taking a short break from my bigger work, or when it’s not practical to use my big palette and computer. It’s sweet to work leisurely with little attachment to how it turns out.
The name came via one of my weekly posts late that year. Swimming in a sea of irreverence and disrespect, I wrote about reverence. It somehow worked.
I wasn’t intending on offering these unplugged paintings for sale. But then Lissa, my business coach and a devotee and collector of my art saw it in progress and it did that mysterious-something that art does to those it’s meant for. When she read that I was considering calling it “Reverence,” that clinched it. And it is now in eastern Canada.
January 2017 – 15″x15″ – Watercolor on paper
More from the Other Flowers Gallery
Whisper
This painting reveals to me how we just never know. The same tree, the same spring flowers on a different day made for an entirely different painting, feeling, message. The other piece I called "Cozy" and it's in the "Little Ones" gallery. It's intimate and sweet....
Delight
The Magnolia Artists gathered for the first time as a group - since March of 2020, in the gardens of Filoli in Woodside. It was early May 2021 and we had all received our two doses of COVID vaccine. It felt like we were safe to be in each others' presence - especially...
Glory
I was intrigued by the winding quality of this branch and the way it snaked across the camera's viewfinder. The blossoming branch grew on a tree at a favorite garden - Filoli. The Magnolia artists were on a field trip there the April before the pandemic. I messed...
Us
A quiet little painting – another from a morning walk in our neighborhood. This composition of a pair of camelias rose to the top of the list of things to paint so I’d have something for February in the 2021 In Beauty…at Home calendar. The winter months aren’t as easy...
Hello
I painted this one just for the fun of it. Many of my paintings hold lots of meaning; they connect to important events or memories. This one... not so much. I loved the light, the happy colors, the simplicity. Since I tend to seriousness and purpose, this is a nice...
Gala
Oh, to have a day alone with beauty. I adore the people in my life. But sometimes it is just as sweet to have the time to myself. Particularly when it’s part of my creative life. I can follow my own whims and rhythm without tending to anyone else's. Spring in the...
Eden
It's just the best - being with someone who loves what we love as much as we do. This painting came out of that kind of experience. In the gardens at Filoli with dear artist friends Lenore and Sue. Sue and I share a thing about apple blossoms – how sweet and chubby...
Beatitude
These hydrangeas in my parents' garden were still blooming the at Christmastime. The leaves reveal the lateness of the season, but most of the flower clusters were as bright and vibrant as mid-summer! It was a mild winter, but still – this colorful? At the end of 2016...
Happy
The image that I used to create this painting was taken on a walk in Fairfax, not too far from where we lived. The tree was in its prime bloom, no spent blossoms. OMG - so gorgeous. Hardly anything says "spring" more than standing under and looking up into a...
Blossoms Squared
A very early painting - if you call it a painting - I named Full Spectrum was the jumping off place for this one. It occured to me back then I'd like to do something else with painting squares. The idea came years later: what if I took a reference image and painted...
Morning Shine
Here's one from a morning walk with our pup. We were across town in Fairfax, in front of friends Dean and Nancy's old place. There we were, walking along, and something grabs me and know I HAVE to paint it. Look at the light bouncing off the shiny camellia...
A Celebration of Pink
I was at my mom and dad's, in their garden taking photos of roses, when I happened to notice the lovely afternoon light coming through this rhododendron. The image that became this painting told me to paint it - it was almost a painting as it was. I just loved all the...
Rhododendron Raindrops
These are Elsie Frye rhododendron flowers, from a shrub that grew for a time in the Fairfax garden. It was right after the rain, in the bright, late morning light. After the daffodils, these were the first to bloom in the spring in that garden. They are faintly...
Touched by the Sun
This dahlia is from Mike and Julie's garden where the Zin vines I've painted grow. All the Browns were at their place for a barbeque one day in the late summer of 2008. The low evening light on this flower caught my eye. This painting swam in my imagination for weeks...
Twin Dahlias
This is painted from an image from my stay in France in 1996. I took a long weekend on my own in August to tour the chateaux along the Loire valley. There was an amazing and fascinating garden exhibition near one of the castles. These dahlias were growing in one of...
Apple Blossom Spring
Dear friends Dean and Nancy lived for many years in a sweet house with an even sweeter garden. This is their Gravenstein apple tree. The configuration of the branches along with the delicacy of the apple blossoms in full bloom were the thing. Of course, I'm also a...
Blue Door
I found this blue door while strolling through a tiny village called Quarante in Languedoc, in southwest France. I was on vacation with my parents. Those 12 days in France continue to be some of the best days I've ever spent on vacation, and I love being reminded of...