Description
L’Hay les Roses is an absolutely phenomenal and overwhelming rose garden in a suburb south of Paris. I visited it one Saturday in June, several weeks after arriving in France in 1996. It had been gray and cloudy since I’d arrived. This was the first sunny weekend and I was buoyant and eager. The underside of this rose growing skyward caught my eye. I love interesting perspectives. Painting it I kept fretting that it was going to be a too-sweet, grandma painting, ugh. I painted the sky last. I had an awful time getting the even, clear wash I wanted. I was convinced I’d ruined it. Creative impulses were fed by my aghast and frustration. I got a 4″ house painting brush out of the garage, moved outside on the patio table, painted standing up and just slapped on a lot more paint and water, dropping in new colors. The now on-purpose textured sky is deeper and the painting far more interesting than it would have been. This is a life-in-full-color sky!
July 2007
