Orange Roses – Day 1

Here’s how it looked after about the first hour or so. But what else was there to do today? Snowing and bitterly cold outside. Better to stand in a nice, warm studio and struggle with roses.

Hours later, I pretty much have the blooms painted. They’re the thing I worry about the most. They could be dead in a day or two. I saw these in the grocery store a couple days ago and loved the color. I happened to have a pale orange Indian sari and some blue bowels to play around with. I realized years ago that the paintings that seemed to jump out at me in galleries were ones made predominantly of contrasting colors.

Years ago an “art woman” (whom shall remain nameless) looked at my paintings, sniffed haughtily and said, “I prefer all beige paintings.” Ugh! Life’s too short to settle for beige! Garrison Keillor once described the brightly colored Florida birds: they sit high up in the trees, screaming, “More! MORE! MORE!!!” Yeah, I guess I’m a Florida bird type of person.