Painting Flower Portraits

Original watercolor for sale in my portfolio.

“I must have flowers, always, always.” -Monet

I often think, “How frivolous are flowers!… How dainty, how feminine, how showy!” and yet, I too, must paint them. In the city, I make a point of walking through the park to commute by foot so I can see them along my path.  Why? Is it the color or the way the light shines through the petals, or the scent of them that persists even as traffic zips by? Sometimes going through the park is a long route, but still, I’d rather see the flowers and hear the birds than rush on the street. In June, the season of flowers is in full bloom. By August flowers strain to hold onto the stems of some bushes in the heat. Today I walked through the Turia Park and the roses looked singed and sad. Flowers still filled some trees along the path. Other flowerbeds lost their petals weeks ago.

Although I have plans for painting a myriad of projects and a series sits unfinished, I find myself doing sketches and painting warm-ups focused on the flowers in gardens and parks and these inevitably fill my art-making time. “I’ll just do a warm-up and then finish my other project,” I negotiate with myself. In early summer I find myself on walks through neighborhoods, drawn to the rainbow of colors that spring from bushes, drip from trees and vines, and nod from crowded flower beds. Walking through a suburb I notice the sameness of manicured lawns, and brick, and wooden framed houses, but the comfortable similarity of patterns is dotted by bright yellow daffodils, ample bushes of hydrangea with heavy, pink and blue spheres. Purple and red petunia bloom in clay pots set on doorsteps.    

When I go to paint flowers I feel the light that remains in them. It’s summer now. This morning I sat on my small portable stool beneath the shade of trees. (I use a stool to avoid sitting in the middle of an ant trail.  I learned from experience!) In August I’m searching out shadows, I’m fascinated by the darks and lights that punctuate trees, grasses, stems, and tiny petals. It is a chance to mix different colors, and peer at the colors in shadows (not all gray!) And recognize how darkness helps emphasize the light. 

“I’ll just do a little warm-up with a flower picture and then get to the “real” painting”

“Deep in their roots all flowers keep the light.”

-Theodore Roethke

I believe this light is in all things, in each of us. But in flowers, this light is pushing its way to the surface to remind us. They cheerfully exclaim, “Yes, there is light. In this crazy mixed up, broken, darkness of the world there is always some light somewhere”. Over 20 years ago, before I’d started painting, I had a dream that I was standing inside a circular gallery filled with large paintings and pastel works of flowers and I realized that they were portraits and that each person at the gallery show was as unique and beautiful as the flower portraits on the walls. We all carry light-  It’s just that flowers unapologetically flaunt their beauty.

Currently on the my wall

Acrylic and collage on canvas

( 16x16in )

In August I continue to paint flowers in vases, and from reference photos, making still-life pictures rather than just landscapes and plein air work. And yes, in the end, I’m accepting that maybe I paint flowers for the very judgment I began voicing in this blog: “How frivolous, feminine, dainty, and showy… hurrah!” Painting is about acceptance and presence, respect and beauty- what better pastime than painting flower portraits to learn this lesson?

Painting flowers, I see flowers differently.

 I’ve seen flowers differently in the past. Items that are clipped, displayed, exchanged, and cultivated; flowers found in hospitals, celebrations, weddings, and funerals, and yet they are more than a commodity. Flowers dot our pedestrian lives, reminding us to embrace the beauty that can bloom in the simplest things, they can survive in the most mundane places and harsh environments. Flowers can be sassy, showy, and vibrant. They can be delicate and fragile. 

I paint flowers to help me see and remember them during my busy pedestrian day. With a portrait of flowers on my wall, I can pause in my household routine and embrace the beauty that blooms in the simplest things, in flowers and us. Because of this, I believe: We are like flowers and flowers are like us. Colorful, sassy, bright, light-filled, delicate, fragile, unique, and beautiful, and deep in the roots of all of us, there is light.