My mom loved flowers! The rural yard of my childhood InSide the Back Mountain in Franklin Township was never a showplace garden, but it was certainly filled with color! In February, Mom planted seeds under grow lights in our cellar. As soon as the ground could be worked, she separated root balls and thinned out the perennials. All through the growing season, she shared generously with friends and acquaintances who admired her plants.
I'm not the gardener my mom was. I love flowers in all colors, but I would rather paint them than plant, pot, weed, dig, pick off bugs, and erect deer-protection fencing around them. Still, I do maintain a few blossoms. My snowdrops bloomed this past January and February and my April daffodils have all faded. Now I can enjoy the blossoms of May… my azaleas, lilacs, peonies, early iris, my neighbor’s rhododendrons, and the clouds of apple blossoms on Brace Road in Orange! I love flowers… their shapes, their colors, their textures, and their personalities.
Sometimes I draw or paint flowers in formal botanical detail while other times I prefer to capture their ephemeral qualities. One floral artist I admire because she combined detail with artistic “magic” is Fidelia Bridges (1835-1923), an orphan who grew up in Salem, Massachusetts and supported herself with her art. It was said, “She paints as if the year were all springtime.”
Like Fidelia, watercolor is my preferred medium to capture the color, beauty, and fragility of flowers. If the end goal is realism, an accurate drawing is a must. I identify the overall basic shape of the flower.The position of the flower requires a basic understanding of perspective, as blooms tilt one way or another. Stems come into play, since some are thicker, erect cylinders and some are thin, curving, pliable cylinders. If leaves are included, are they flat and linear like grasses? Are they a compound leaf like roses or peonies? Are they rounded, fan shaped or heart shaped like geraniums and violets? Are they arranged spiral, alternate, or some other way along the stems? Many observations are required to create one floral painting.
My azalea painting is more informal than the foxglove or dahlia paintings. The petals of each separate azalea bloom form a bell shape, and there are several for each stem. They seem to dance and twist in the sunshine. The colors are soft and blended.
Foxgloves have tubular or trumpet-shaped blooms marching up a firm, erect stem which bends under the weight of the petals as they open gradually from bottom to top. This foxglove painting is one of my favorites because I was able to capture great lighting contrasted against a dramatic, dark background, which allows the colors to appear as though they are glowing.
Dahlias are definitely not a spring flower, but I'm including this painting because it illustrates the disc flower. Dahlias may also be considered a ray flower, like daisies and sunflowers, because of the radiating petals (which are not really petals at all, but that's a botany lesson for another time!) Ray flowers are challenging because the petals twist, turn, overlap, and, if the flower is turned slightly away from the viewer, introduce an entire realm of perspective challenges! I enjoyed including the leaves, petals, stems, and blurred blooms in the background to indicate space and depth.
Creating an original realistic painting of flowers takes time, despite what YouTube tutorials and paint-n-sip parties would want you to believe. But it takes a lot more work to grow them! My mom was truly a dedicated gardener. One evening when our daughter was in elementary school here in Dallas, she came home with an assignment to write an original limerick. Husband/father Joe decided to help, and together they came up with several, but the best one honored my mom in a humorous but loving way. Since May is the month of Mother’s Day, I’d like to share it with you:
There once was a grandma named Mert
who loved to plant flowers in dirt.
She potted and dug
And picked off each bug
While red ants crawled up her skirt!
I wrote it out in calligraphy and illustrated it with decorative flowers. Joe framed it and we presented it to Mom for Mother’s Day. She laughed and laughed and loved it! (But she hated those red ants!) It hung in her home for many decades and now hangs in mine.
May is my favorite flowering month of the year. Which blossoms are your favorites?
And best wishes for a Happy Mother’s Day to all our wonderful moms InSide the Back Mountain!
This article originally appeared in the May 2024 publication of InSide the Back Mountain.