A Painter's Musings on the Visual World

“A goal is an overarching principle that guides decision making. Objectives are specific, measurable activities that are performed to meet the goal which results in the expected outcome.” This may be true for controlled scientific situations, but then there is real life… ask any flower in my sparse garden.

If you are nervous when you get near a horse and are thinking about being bounced from the saddle, chances are the horse will take note and be more than willing to comply. The human factor is the wild card in any expected outcome scenario. If you somehow convince the horse you are confident in what you are doing, you will have a much better day. 

I have never learned how to convince a plant of anything and I have always said flowers are “not my thing.” You would think that someone who had raised two children to adulthood would be able to figure out a peony bush. You would think careful application of good soil, water and fertilizer would yield at least one flower. But you would be wrong because flowers are tyrannical beings that pop up uncared for in dry soil in one area and defy coaxing and coddling in another.  Unlike my horse, I think they know I do not understand them. 

Joe Anna Arnett “ Peony with Golden Rose Entourage “  9 x 12

JoeAnna Arnett’s garden is a tribute to understanding flowers.  It is a beautiful combination of order and chaos – of planted and nurtured roses and peonies interspersed with “volunteers” – what she calls the columbines and other blooms that magically show up in the open spaces. Her paintings also show understanding of how they grow and what they have survived. She describes her flowers in terms of what they have withstood - heat and drought, hail and cold spells. They are as bold and strong as her brushstrokes. She truly loves them and it is a joy to watch someone paint a subject they know and love so well. The objective and the outcome are clear. 

Knowledge breeds confidence and confidence breeds better paintings. When we know what we are doing, it shows.  Our colors are cleaner, our values are clearer and our designs stay intact. We all have our wheelhouses where we do our best work and yet we all occasionally push ourselves out of our comfort zone. And that is how I found myself painting in Joe Anna’s garden trying to communicate with flowers who were obviously whispering about me behind my back. When our expectations are not clear, that also shows. Our paintings most likely come out tentative and weak. 

Jane Chapin “Azalea and Friends” 16 x 8”

So how do you paint a subject you simply do not understand very well? I find if I can add some concrete familiar structure such as a pot it keeps me from getting lost in the foliage and petals. The age-old squinting down to simplify helps along with the mantra “just paint shapes”. By being more abstract in our approach, it does not matter what the subject is, so much as the shape of the light and shadow. While this may get us in the range of a good color sketch, it does not usually result in a painting that looks like we knew the subject or told its story. It is more like we are painting around the subject. Instead of choosing a flower and painting its depth and color and movement with all else being secondary, we paint the walkway surrounded by what we see as leafy flowery stuff. We keep our distance from the heart of a flower like it is bad horse about to kick us. And this is how I arrived at the illogical place where I became more tentative looking at a flower than into the eyes of a thousand pound animal that could easily kill me.  

Jane Chapin “Shoeing Scout” 18 x 24

I have been drawing and painting horses since I was ten years old. I’ve studied their anatomy and know the direction their hair grows. I’ve read about them, ridden them and cared for them and been thrown off, stepped on and bitten. But beyond that, I admire their nobility, which is why I want to paint them and tell their stories. 

Joe Anna Arnett "Peonies, Crimson and White"  24 x 32

Joe Anna Arnett has been painting flowers her entire adult life. She has been growing her amazing garden almost as long. Not only does she understand their physical nature, she knows their drama and their emotion. She tells their stories because they speak to her. My expectation in setting up my easel in her garden is not to match those years of knowledge in one afternoon.  It is merely to overcome the fear of being "kicked." Our “not my thing” painting challenges are not to master every subject but simply to eliminate roadblocks from our vocabulary and give our skills a workout. That’s a good outcome, expected or not.