Eden

Original Sold

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There’s something so special about being with someone who loves what we love as much as we do. This painting came out of that kind of experience. I was in the gardens at Filoli in Woodside, California in the spring of 2016 with Lenore and Sue – two new and very dear friends. Sue and I share a thing about apple blossoms – how sweet and chubby they are, the buds are soft pink and they open to flowers with delicate, roundish petals. And there are the beginnings of green leaves at the same time as the flowers and buds – some flowering trees the leaves come after the blooms. Green and pink are such a happy combination!

While Lenore amused herself in other areas of the garden, we reveled – we obsessed – pointing out to each other this cluster and that. The bees, the bright sunshine, the freedom from anyone hovering, trying to be patient while it’s clear they are bored and ready to move on. We snapped pictures on our iPhones with all the time in the world at hand. It was a piece of heaven!

Later, looking through all those pictures, not a single one of them on its own expressed how I felt – so off to Photoshop I went. I ended up with basically two images, top and bottom, but I had to fit them together so they appeared as one. And then because I could not help myself, I brought in two more bees. I wanted to portray the sense of aliveness of the moment – and a single bee just didn’t. I simplified the background some, but I didn’t want to paint just sky behind the main subjects. I wanted to include the profusion of all the other trees in the orchard around it – meaning I had a whole lot of detail to wade through.

I started working on it late in the spring of 2016 and through the summer, disciplining myself to paint the background sections before working on the branches, leaves and finally the flowers. But, when August came around I was craving intense color. The time had passed for soft colors and for the first time I set aside a painting that had come this far, to work on something else. When the spring of 2017 came around I was totally ready to work on it again, finishing it up in just three weeks.

The name “Eden” came to me at the beginning – even before I’d painted it. I had considered giving this name to a rose painting I did just before starting this one. When that one became “Eve” I realized that “Eden” – the name of the original garden, with all its fertility and promise – was meant for this painting. That it is an apple tree makes it all the more so.

May 2016 – April 2017 – 40″x40″ – Watercolor on paper