Colorful Row of Irises

When do you know you have too many irises? Never!

I just adore a flower that doesn't ask me to do anything for it.  They just come back prettier and thicker every year.

I just Original Palette Knife Oil Painting on 6"x 12" Wrapped Canvas

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Cottage Flowers

Each month I look at Sara's Inspiration Image and read her thoughts. Then I let it simmer in the back of my mind for a while and wait for an idea to come to me for my next painting.  This month was different. I kept being pulled back to and in to her photograph. I loved everything about it.  

1st... It featured my favorite color combinations.

2nd... It held a story.  I don't know the story, but I can wonder... 

• Who planted the flowers?  Maybe he gave her the flowers as a gift and she planted the bulbs. 
• What once grew in the window box? Maybe it was more flowers or some herbs.
• Why did they paint the window frames turquoise? Maybe it was her favorite color and made her smile.

3rd... It fit within my favorite descriptive combination: 

    Elegance within simplicity.

This painting was done as my submission to August's Inspiration Collaboration.  Thank you https://www.instagram.com/saraharley.studio/ for your lovely photograph/inspiration image/reference photo.

One more thing...

I have a nail in this tree and always hang my paintings here to photograph them once they're finished.  My butterfly plant (I'm sure it has a name...) is blooming purple right beside it right now.  love, Love, LOVE!

Oh, how I'm going to enjoy seeing this on my own wall while it waits for its forever home.  Full disclosure, as soon as it's dry enough, I plan to touch the textured surface with my fingertips each time I pass by it.

Original Palette Knife Oil Painting on 8"x 10" Wrapped Canvas

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Purple Iris, the Silver Lining

I love irises. 
They bring the purple into spring every April.

Here are a few of mine that bring such joy each year. They are beautiful and I love them, but they don't really have a story.  The one in the painting has a story worth telling.

We moved into our new home the week of September 11, 2001. (Yeah, that September 11...) It was a busy time.  The country was reeling from the events of the week, the school year had just begun, and we were setting up our forever home.
A friend told me she was thinning her iris bed and asked if I'd like to have some for our new yard.  Um... YES!  Like I would ever turn that offer down!
Like I said, it was a busy time of getting settled, and building a flower bed wasn't high on the list of priorities.  But we had this great little hillside just down the drive. (I painted this little hillside earlier this year.)  I could just imagine this hillside covered with irises, so I poked the bulbs into the ground all over the hillside and waited... The next spring their light green flags were tall and beautiful... but not a single flower.  That's okay, it takes a year for them to get really grounded, so I waited... another year... and another... and another... Lots of green flags... zero flowers... ever...
Now, friends, look at the painting of the hillside, what do you see?  
Lots of trees... too much shade... not enough sun for irises to bloom... ever...

Fast forward... 8 years... 
Every one who has who lived in Northwest Arkansas for a long time will remember the winter of 2009... the ice storm of the century... branches breaking through the night with gunshot-like cracks, treetops splintered, no power for 8 days... devastation everywhere... 

So much clean up...  a mission team from a Baptist church in another county, men we didn't know, just showed up with their chainsaws... just came to help... so humbling...

Then the weather warmed... spring arrived... April came... and... 
     Surprise...
          Surprise...
               Surprise...
The irises on the hillside bloomed for the first time ever!
How could that be?
All those toppled trees and broken limbs... let the sunshine in...

...a silver lining... 

Do you have a "silver lining" story?  Share!!

Original Oil Painting on 8"x 10" Wrapped Canvas

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A Purple Iris

May = a bed of irises :)

May = a busy, busy month for teachers :)

May = not much time or energy for painting. :(

May = the countdown... 8... days... left... :)

May = decisions... heat? or air? :)

May = a garden filled with baby plants and hope :)









This is the peacefulness that I get to come home to....

I love BOTH sides of my May!

Original Oil Painting - 6"x 12"

Iris

When did it "click?"

I started painting in February of 2007.  

First my teacher guided me through the painting of a Summer Tree.  (I loved it!) 
Then I tried the again, but this time it was an Autumn Tree. (I thought of myself as Monet!)
My next lesson was to paint a white cup. (It was the hardest thing ever and looked like a blob!)
That was followed by a White Daisy. (How were all those colors inside the white!)
My fifth and sixth paintings were of an owl that lives in my backyard. (They didn't turn out like I'd envisioned they would... Ok, they were awful... I haven't had the nerve to post them.)

Then it happened...
On my seventh painting, something clicked.  I put those colors and shapes on the canvas, blended them together, and stood back amazed.  Those colors and shapes looked like an iris!  
I'd made one petal appear to be behind the other.  I'd made another petal appear to be turning back.  I'd managed to create some depth!  

The other day, I wondered what ever happened to this painting.  My daughter said she'd taken it.  It hangs in her house now.  What an honor; I couldn't be more pleased.  

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