Glory

Original Sold

Shop Online for Archival Prints

Blossoms on a crab apple (I think!) branch from a tree gowing at Filoli – a treasure of a public garden where I’ve found solace and inspiration for decades.  It was April in 2019, a Tuesday – an all-Magnolia field trip to see the spring in full glory.  There were bloosoms on all kinds of fruit trees, rows and pots of tulips and hyacynths and blooming wisteria draped on buildings and walls.  Filled with the sights and scents of the flowers, several of us went further south to Sandy’s in Los Altos Hills for a delicious lunch in her lovely home.  Days like this are nothing short of a privilige.

I was intrigued by the winding quality of this branch – the way it snaked across my camera’s viewfinderl  Later, revieing the photos, I was glad for the tops of the huge valley oak trees, that so pul one in that place in the background.  I had to mess with it a bit, though!  I added small clsuter here and there, to both accentuate the wave and take up some of the extra negative space.  I knew this ould take a while – there are lot of petals and tons of intricate details of stems and sunlight weaving through.  This is an interesting composition, in that there isn’t really one focal point.

I started painting two years later, it the spring of 2021, when we were first advised it would be safe to gather in person again.  We did so in our really nice garage – well nice as far as garages go!  It was a heady time, It was then that I got to see in person all the many paintings that the artists in our grups painted while gathered only on Zoom.

My beloved Sister Mary Neill helped with the name.  When she saw it she said “Oh, Honey!  It gives glory to God!”  So “Glory” it is.

April – August, 2021 – 20 1/2″ x 41″ – Watercolor on Paper