Garlic on Blue (7 x 10) $35.00

I’ve been doing framing and back to back art shows rather than painting lately.   And lucky for me the shows have been too busy for much painting, but here is a little still life I snuck in.

Wall Flowers (6 x 9) $35.00

When my mother was a little girl, she and a little friend spent one summer making dancing ladies out of hollyhocks.  An upside down open bloom formed the voluminous dancing skirt.  A bud for the head attached to the skirt with a toothpick completed the dancing lady.

When we visited her house this summer, she taught my daughters to make the pretty dancing ladies.  She had plenty of hollyhocks and other flowers for the girls to play with.  At first their flower dolls were all like grandma’s.  But soon they added bits of asters and daisies to the heads and bodies. Finally they made a little prince made out of pea pods and pea stems.

The girls spent several afternoons playing with the flower doll on the back porch.  But alas there was only one prince.  So most of the dancing flower ladies had to wait their turn at the ball.  Here are two of them waiting now.

I have many photos of the girls playing with the hollyhock ladies, and one of these days soon, I’m going to paint the girls playing with the flower dolls.  It the meantime, I thought I’d start small with a couple studies of the flower dolls.

Because I wanted very soft edges I did these two without mask, saving the whites with careful paint strokes.  The flowers themselves are a mixture of opera pink (PR22) and deep red rose (PV 19), both quinacridone reds.  I added hansa yellow to make the oranges and cobalt blue to make the greens.

The flag stone is many layered mixes of the same colors toned with burnt sienna. The mortar is burnt sienna and cobalt blue.

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