Just There

Just There (Watercolor 11 X 14)

"Just There" was just there. A friend and I went on a painter's vacation.  We went to Cape Cod, then to Maine and to Monhegan Island.  At the home of a friend in Cape Cod she had freshly cut yellow flowers on her kitchen table. They were just there and needed to be painted.

Petal Tips: I painted two watercolors on this subject;  one vertical and the other horizonal. They were quick studies but they were so delightful in that I saved a lot of white and kept them clean.

I used purple behind the golden flowers which made them pop. It was wet on dry. So I had to keep a wet edge at all times, so that as I placed the yellow on the tips, I could bring raw sience into the middle and bing the colors in the  petal together in one decisive stroke.

I like leaving one edge of the vase to the imagination. I would say that this design is a definite cross  in the way that the stems are executed.  Did I plan that? No, not at all. The weight of the painting is on the left and I felt that if I brought the flower into the corner, it would pull the arrangement back into the painting.

Meanderings~~~~~Isn't that the way it is? Things are just there, and it is with the artistic eye that we take a second look and discover beauty right before our eyes. Photographers, artists or writers, they just happen to be at the right place at the right time and catch that moment in time on paper. I believe there are many right times, right places, the secret is turning aside and looking.  I am reminded of Moses, he turned aside and saw the burning bush. It became holy ground.  

Is that not what artists do when they paint something that is just there, the common becomes sacred. Not that the flowers changed into a spiritual thing, but it is in seeing the beauty that gives the creator glory.