We’re well into February, and I hope you’ve been following along with my second monthly project for the year: February Flowers! Have I painted your favorite flower yet? My social media feeds have been full of flower paintings. I’ve strived to paint a flower a day all month long, though I did get behind a day or two due to the toddler refusing to nap. If you didn’t know, I have four children home with me all day, ages 2.5-10. So nap time is my painting time. You can learn more about me here if you’d like.
All the floral beauty has really boosted the vibe in my studio, as outside, the snow is knee-deep and temps dropped below zero for a while. It’s beautiful in its own way, but I am starting to yearn for spring. Until then, I’ll keep painting flowers and sharing them with you. In fact, I am delighted to say that a collection of favorite flower paintings is coming March 10th! If you’re a member of my Inner Circle e-mail list, you’ll get an early surprise on February 26th! Join us for free here if you aren’t already so that you don’t miss out.
Let’s take a closer look at the beautiful flower painting journey…
The first flower painting was this gorgeous, red hibiscus from my little hibiscus plant, which reminds me of a story about plants and me: If there’s any true secret of eternal youth, it’ll be found in snake plants. Seriously, those things just don’t die! 😆 The oldest plant I have started as a broken chunk of a snake plant a coworker rescued from the road and left in a Pepsi bottle on my desk at the landscape place I worked at in high school. I wish I had a picture of it, but alas, digital cameras and smartphones didn’t exist yet. I revived it, by no means of my own plant skills, and it moved with me to college, then to graduate school in Chicago, to Southern California, and here to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Just this Fall, I separated it, and now I have two beautiful snake plants thriving. Ever since, I like to try and propagate plants, even though I’m still not very knowledgeable about it. Most of my cuttings have survived over the years, though, and this painting of a hibiscus is from cuttings a friend gave me sometime about two kids ago, which equates to 2014ish. I’ve managed to keep one happy ever since. It lives in a sunny corner of my bedroom all winter and migrates to the front porch when it’s warm enough. Finally, I painted it. 🌺
Next up was the sunflower, which I painted from a photo I shot of my sunflowers growing in the yard last summer. I have two patches of sunflowers: one is intentional planted from seed, and another is planted by the birds that visit my feeders. They often do a better job planting than I, so I admire their patch quite a bit.
For my third flower painting, I decided to go and get a bouquet of fresh flowers to paint from. I popped into my local Trader Joe’s and walked out with purple tulips, a gorgeous bunch of hydrangea and some tall mum balls. Let me tell you— having fresh flowers around in February in Michigan is AMAZING!
The flower painting continued, as I painted from life and from photos. Tulips, mums, a rose, (and a lady named Rose, which I’ll share in a future post), a stunning pink dahlia, Lily of the valley, gerbera daisies, a cheerful daffodil from last spring’s flowerbeds, ranunculus (one of my favorite flowers), and pink carnations that my husband gave our daughter for Valentine’s Day. The beauty just keeps growing! My most recent painting, number 17, is of red poppies. I love poppies, as you probably guessed if you saw my California poppy field paintings last year.
“Nobody sees a flower, really; it is so small. We haven't time, and to see takes time— like to have a friend takes time.”
—Georgia O’Keeffe
As I work now to create the listings for my new flower collection March 10th, I hold hope that these flower paintings brighten your day and bring your home beauty, but most of all, I hope you make time for flowers and friends, because life is so dull and lonely without them. Bring home a flower painting from this collection, and let it remind you of someone you love.
I’ll be e-mailing members of my Inner Circle e-mail list before this collection launches with a special surprise. Make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss it!
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