Dredged Up from My Ancient Past

Decided to post some earlier floral paintings of mine. All the ingredients I enjoy in my work now were already in place maybe 25 years ago (just an estimate). The saving of much white paper, the geometric feeling for space and shapes,  the lack of details, the simplification, and the interjection of my own colors for things in nature rather than their true colors.

Daylilies

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Since I've had my students painting orchids this week, I thought I'd include this painting. A student in my class lent me this plant for a week or two so I could paint from it. It was so many years ago.The plant was truly spectacular. I remember being so afraid I would kill it while I had it in my posession, and couldn't wait until it was safely back in her hands. I don't have a green thumb because I'm not attentive to plants, other than wanting to paint them. Then I'm done. But I did love doing the paintingand extending the plant's leaves to create a foil for the blossoms.
ONE MORE FOLLOWS THE NEXT PARAGRAPH!

The painting below was significant. One of my students, Charles Klingensmith, an older quite dapper gentleman, always dressed in a sportcoat with a colorful handkerchief in his breast pocket, decided to enter the Our Town Exhibit one year with a watercolor he'd done of a location in Scotland. He'd been painting with me for several years by then. Among his close friends were several noted area painters, among them Richard Jerzy. Charles was very attuned to the art scene of this area. That year he amazed himself and won an award for the painting he had entered in the show, which had been painted during the period he studied with me. It was quite an honor, and he was thrilled because it validated what he was doing. When he showed up in class the following week, he entered the room carrying a bouquet of hot pink carnations for me, wrapped in this silky sheened green paper from the florist. I remembered how it felt as I opened them and I wanted to paint that feeling, the thrill of it all for both him and me! The color in the actual painting is more vivid than this shows, because I transferred it from an old slide into my computer, and the process weakened the colors in the image.