Wedding Flowers

“Wedding Flowers” — plein air field study in oil on canvas 18 x 18″ by Margie Guyot

My friend Lori held a wedding this weekend at her place and had loads of beautiful roses and peonies left over. She’s a painter, too, and did a flower painting with them. I happened by this morning and she gifted me a nice bunch. As with dead foxes (see previous post), a pretty bunch of flowers is a shame to waste, so as soon as I got home, I set them up on the patio and painted furiously.

Of course I could have made things a lot easier for myself, had I chosen a simpler tablecloth. Several weeks ago I snagged an amazing chunk of fabric at an estate sale. The owner had traveled to Indonesia a lot and had an astounding collection of wonderful, weird stuff. My kind of sale! The flowers were sweet and romantic; the fabric looked like a wild, drugged-out night at Woodstock.

I set it all up on the patio, in the blazing sun. A suet feeder hangs only five feet away from where I sat and all afternoon I was scolded by birds. Amazingly though, one brave pileated woodpecker landed on the suet feeder and gave me a good stare-down, eventually deciding I was no threat, and proceeded to gorge himself.

I’ll probably find a few things to touch up in the morning (as usual).

Here’s my setup this afternoon. Notice Picasso, my devoted cat….