Sunday, May 22, 2011

QUEEN LILY




Queen Lily


Oil on Canvas
20 x 10 inches

Currently available through The Gallery Collection at La Posada de Santa Fe
call Sara Eyestone at 505 954-9668

It's been such a long time since I've posted anything on this blog that I'm feeling guilty! I've found that Facebook has overrun my life and I've neglected my blogging friends.

Well, I'm back and I want to let you know that I have a solo show up at 764 West Gallery in New Braunfels, TX. This is the very last painting I completed for the exhibition and I think it's one of my best new works for the show.

Maybe sometime in the next few days I'll post the other new work. It's been a long dry spell for my easel but I finally broke through and finished 7 new paintings (some of them are really small, I admit it!) which were all completed in the frenzy of the month leading up to the show.

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The story behind "Queen Lily" was kind of serendipitous (is that a real word?) I was planning to put a white Prickly Poppy in this one and I carefully drove down FM2722 looking for some with my husband. I used leather gloves to handle them since they're rather viscious and gingerly brought them home, held them with pliers to anchor them on the flower frog in the bottom of the bowl, and set up my still life. I got so involved with painting the copper (one of my favorite subjects) and the rocks and water that before I started painting the flower it was far beyond dead!

I felt a little guilty about ripping a perfectly happy wild plant from it's roots and was anticipating going through the entire process all over again.

On a trip to the supermarket, I decided to just cruise through the flower department and found this lone group of Oriental Lilies. It was pretty impressive so I took it home and here it is...far more regal and it smelled WONDERFUL in my studio for the entire week. I've been back to look for another bouquet of them and I haven't seen any since then. The universe certainly had a hand in this painting!

I can't wait to find another one so I can do a few more paintings of this gorgeous flower!