Sherose

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I had first encountered these roses at the Russian River Rose Company in Healdsburg, CA years before they grabbed me. And when they did they would not let me go until I painted them. This ambush happened during a Thursday evening group at the beginning of March, 2018. I had been looking through my photo library for images of softly colored roses to help a student with a painting she was working on, when I came upon it. I first saw the image in its entirey, but needed to zoom in to see what each of these roses looked like more closely. Taking in the light, the colors, the shapes of the rose that is just to the left of the rose in the upper right corner (why that one specifically, I have no idea), and I gasped a bit.

It was as if I was, from that moment, under a spell. This has never happned before. I’ve been captivated, but not like this. I was compelled! I said to the artists there that evening: “if you need me, please send up a flare, because I just found out that I have to paint this image and it needs some work in Photoshop before I can start drawing it.” I knew these softly colored roses had to be a big – 40″x60″ – painting. By the end of the evening I had found all the pieces it needed for the composition to come together. I drew it the following Sunday – which took a good two hours, standing there, my back soaking in the projected image, discovering the shapes that would be the bones of the painting.

I told myself I had to first finish “Dolce” the roses from the garden near Florence. It was so close to being done and I’d be happier painting this new one if Dolce weren’t sitting there scolding me for not getting it done.

I’ve painted just one other painting this size – Hallelujah. But this one is more detailed, more involved. It also had a lot of subtleties in color and lighting that were going to be tricky to pull together. In order to support myself in some level of consistency and harmony, I decided to paint it with only four paints/pigments: Winsor & Newton Permanent Rose, Qor Benzimdazolone Yellow, Daniel Smith Manganese Blue Hue and Daniel Smith Phthalo Green, Yellow Shade. Almost every single touch of my brush in this painting contained 2 or more of these colors.

I worked on it faithfully, but not obsessively. Including a couple of weeks away from it while on vacation, I finished it in early June, in time to enter in the 2018 Marin County Fair. I so wanted to be thrilled with how it came out, but I wasn’t. I layered thin washes of various colors trying to make myself happy, to no avail. I ended up taking on faith the appreciation other people were offering it. The fair ended up giving it pride of place – on a wall opposite the main entrance. When I walked in to see it, lit up in the center of that beautiful exhibition, I saw it’s essence. To fully experience this painting it needs to be seen well lit and from many feet away!

What about this strange name I’ve given it? “This”? It’s awkward and challenging to use a word like “this” as a title, but it’s what has come to me as its name! “This” stems from my desire to re-orient myself and anyone in my midst to the feminine, to the beautiful, to the life-giving-ness of nature. This, my friends, This.

UPDATE: Ok, so the strange name turned out to be too strange. It was awkward, confusing and I could never use it to find the files on my computer! So…we’ve gone back my the original “working title.” Sherose is what I first wanted to call this feminine, feminist paiting. Guess I should have stuck with it.

Spring 2018 – 40″x60″ – Watercolor on paper