Author: Merilee

Purple Tulips

/ Merilee / 4 Comments

One day about a month ago I decided to buy a bunch of purple tulips from Trader Joe’s so I could paint them.  Nothing serious.  Just a quick, fluid study of tulips.  I was rather down at the time and thought that a fast floral might perk me up.  Well, it did, but it became a thing.  Several weeks and four, separate bouquets later (because tulips get kinda yucky after three days and need to be tossed) this is the final outcome.  It became a hard course in “I’m gonna make this work”.  No being precious.  Just hardcore, teeth gritted “You’re gonna do what I want you to do or else.”  The composition changed and shifted and I tried to keep it effortless as best as I could, without falling too far down into the detail trap.

I’m pretty pleased with my purple tulips from Trader Joe’s.  They listened to me.

Oil on Canvas

22″ x 28″

My Mother

/ Merilee / 2 Comments

My Mother

She was one of those people that can only be described as “superhuman”. She could do anything. When she decided she was going to do something, she did it. Immediately. No waiting around thinking about it. She just did it. Whatever that “it” happened to be, it was always perfect.

She could sew like a dream, upholster, taught herself how to cane furniture. She was an excellent cook. Her garden – forget about it. Flowers that were huge and amazing.

She was my biggest supporter, knew me better than anyone. She always nudged me to paint. “You need to be painting…” is something I heard all the time as a kid and a teen. It was my mother who looked at one of my photographs when I was around 10 or 11 and she said, “Oh. You have an eye for composition.” I didn’t understand what she meant, but the fact that she thought I took good pictures meant everything. I lost her to a brain aneurysm in 1993. I miss her every day. I took this photo of her not long before she left us.

Tell your mothers that you love them. Appreciate who they are, just as they are. Never take them for granted. Ever.

Happy Mothers Day

Floral Friday – Painting Roses

/ Merilee / 2 Comments

 

This past March was the hottest that I can remember.  It was as if Autumn went directly back into Summer and skipped both Winter and Spring.  Temperatures in the high 80’s and 90’s, even 100 in some places.  It didn’t just nudge my garden, it shoved it into high gear, sending leaves out on trees that don’t normally leaf out until late April, and my wisteria shot into full bloom a good three weeks before it should have. This also included my roses.  I don’t get my first rose bloom until April, like clockwork.  This year I had my first rose in early March.

So one day after finishing a painting of the desert, which is what I’m normally doing, I decided to paint some roses before they burned up in the heat.  This then led me down a path of “I want to paint roses”.  There is something satisfying about painting roses, especially if you can grasp the complexity in as simple a manner as possible.  That is not easy.

Pink Roses

Oil on canvas

18″ x 24″

SOLD

 

The Blue Mountain

/ Merilee

There is a mountain in the desert right on the edge of Death Valley that I like to stare at.  It’s always blue.  Whether it’s sunny or raining, dawn, dusk or when sand is blowing, it’s some shade of blue.  Usually cerulean blue.  I like it’s shape.  I call it The Blue Mountain.  It’s like my friend.

The Blue Mountain

Oil on board

12″ x 24″