Finally, the cold days of winter are starting to disappear around me, and the perfect cloudy and cool mornings of Spring, together with warmer afternoons are here.
A lot of plants die on me during Winter... (The perks of living in the desert. Sigh), so I started replenishing my container garden with succulents and colorful geranium plants, and as I planting and re-potting, my artistic soul started to feel a blooming sensation once again, warmed by the coming spring and the longer days. And I had to oblige, so I finished my gardening work and headed right to the studio.
I had told you that I knew there are changes coming for me this year. I will try new things, new ideas and new subjects. I feel that I need to come back to my roots as an artist, and I will be exploring old themes and passions with the found experience on my career as an artist and maker.
So, I decided to paint plants and flowers this time. I find the shapes and textures of plants fascinating. The perfection you find in the tiniest budding as the grow, with details so small that you need a magnifying glass to see them, ready to spread life. The leaves and their million shapes, each one producing food for the plant while they are beautiful to look at, each one adapted to they own environment.
And of course, the flowers and the seed pods. They are so amazing to me, so perfect, made in mother's nature wisdom to perfectly spread life as the bloom, get pollinated and then release their seeds in perfect little packets, each one designed to utilitarian perfection and beauty.
YOU CAN ADOPT THE COLLECTION HERE.
I was not quite sure of what I wanted to paint, but I was sure of the colors I wanted everything to have, so I designed the color palette by getting my acrylic paints that I had not used in a long time (I had to organize them first... and that's a story for another time! LOL) and I realized how much I missed painting.
I was really enjoying the process, laying the paint on a fresh surface was intimidating after so long, but I was so happy that I did not let that stop me, and I kept painting flowers. But to be honest, the first attempt was... an attempt.
I painted the flowers over a white background to make them stand out, but the effect was not what I was expecting, so I really tried to save them by painting a green background over them.
Not bad, but still not what I was looking for. The flowers look nice, and background is a very nice color, but there was something I was not convinced about, so I decided to give them another try. So, I repainted the background once again.
Better, if I say so myself, but still not quite what I needed. I had flashbacks of "Whiplash" and the "Not Quite My Tempo" scene and I started to feel bummed out, but then I remembered the phrase "You should not stick to your mistake just before you took too long making it" and I sad, to hell with this, and painted all over all of my work, and then I started all over with a new series of square blocks painted with a yummy golden brown color.
And then, I painted a cat with a blue ribbon because... cats. You know. But you can see that the ideas are blooming inside my head. The creative process is strange and I never know when the idea will strike, so I like it to catch me in the act of having a brush and paint on my hands, so I don't miss the opportunity to be inspired.
I had not felt this free in a long time, and I really loved how the flowers spoke to me, how they wanted to be painted, and the textures and colors on the paint started to give them a very unique personality to each one of them.
If you have plants, insects will come along. And I love that. Life brings life and they are welcome in my garden. They have developed a relationship where they need each other to survive, and I'm not going to get in the way of that. And I knew I had to honor the hard work insects do buzzing around, pollinating and being cute, so I started painting some of my favorite insects on these wood blocks.
