On November 1st I started a new project—to paint flowers from my own California garden every day for a year. I heard your incredulous gasp—365 paintings! That’s crazy talk!
Well, OK, if you insist, I’ll take weekends off and two weeks of vacation. I also think I should get a day off on Christmas and Thanksgiving and any other holiday where I personally have to cook a turkey. But that still works out to 248 paintings, which I think is quite a respectable number. In addition, I’ll be writing about each of the flowers specifically, and California gardening in general. I intend to publish the writing and reproductions of the paintings as a set of books: “An Artist’s Year in the Garden: Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall.”
This sort of project isn’t new. There was Julie and Julia—cooking all the recipes from Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year. There was Portrait of Maquoketa, where artist Rose Frantzen painted anyone in her town who would come to pose for her. Closer to home I have an artist friend who’s painting Natural Bridges over the course of a year as part of her Master’s thesis. So I’m not breaking new ground in announcing a year-long project. But I’m not doing it to break new ground, I’m doing it to improve as an artist and to share what I love—my garden.
My plan is to make all the paintings small, either 5 x 7” or 6 x 6,” and all will be oil paintings. They’ll be done from life, from plants that were growing in my garden that day (remember, we don’t have snow here in Northern California—there’s always something blooming). I know painting flowers isn’t exactly new. But I love painting and writing about flowers—so sue me! Or better yet, keep tabs on my progress, by checking this blog. Think I can I do it? Place your bets.
