FDAC -- Day Three: Flowers

I am participating in the Five Day Art Challenge on Facebook this week. Here is the entry for Day Three.

FIVE DAY ART CHALLENGE – Day Three: Welcome back to my art challenge posts. Today’s theme is flowers as interpreted in sketches and watercolor. While I admire the genre of botanical art with its attention to detail very much, I also like doing flowers with a loose hand. All three of these pieces are from my sketchbooks or art journals. The Ruby Throat daylily was drawn from life, as was the dried rose. The peony comes from a photograph taken by LeVan Hawkins, Chicago area writer who is gracious enough to share his words and work with me from time to time.

The peony and the daylily shout “summer” to us in this before-spring-and-gee-but-it-is-cold-up-north month of February. And the dried rose, well, I save roses from almost every special bouquet. They end up in my box of things to sketch where they are a reminder of how even when colors fade and stems dry, the fullness of the rose, its essence, remains.

Today I tag Tamie Dell Cook, a graphic artist and scrapbooker from the Thumb. I used to work with Tamie at the Pigeon Progress Advance, many moons ago. I’m really looking forward to Tamie’s contributions to the Five Day Art Challenge.

In case some of you would rather see my posts and read about the art all at once, I have combined the FDAC Album from Facebook with the posts over on my personal blog, From Under the Willow.

Thanks for following along and be artful in some word or deed today.

Day Three: Flowers
Chloe's Rose is a preliminary sketchbook painting that I did for a framed rose that I
sent to my niece, Chloe Rose, on her 18th birthday. Caran 'd Ache watercolor pencil, micron pen.

 
Day Three: Flowers
Sketchbook page from August 2013. A single scape of the daylily, Ruby Throat, one of my
favorite daylilies. Sketches/painting done one evening in twilight and finished in the
studio at Cedar Bluff. Caran 'd Ache watercolor pencil, micron pen, Winsor and Newton watercolors.

Day Three: Flowers
From Art Journal #13, the first version of a drawing that is inspired by a photograph from a friend.
I call this "LeVan's Peony," after photographer and friend LeVan Hawkins. There is a second version of
this same flower in another sketchbook. Notice that the sun in the daily cartouche
 has peony petals for its rays.
When I see a photo on Facebook that I want to work with, I contact the photographer for their permission.
LeVan and other are gracious to say "Go ahead! Sketch and paint!" I'm grateful for that permission
since it links their careful eye with my drawing and painting efforts.

Peony Memories

The first peonies planted at Cedar Bluff lake house are blossoming this summer and I'm in awe of the depth of color in the blossoms. Peonies are such showstoppers with their big, loppy blooms and thick mass of petals.

The pink peony in the photo above came from a fundraiser that the Pigeon District Library sponsored a few years ago. The plant, like most peonies, has been slow to develop, but this year it has taken hold and has several big heads of flowers. Peonies are fussy; they like to be in one place for a while before they thrive.

My parents-in-law, John and Pauline Eichler, were married 67 years ago this month on June 22, 1946 in the farmhouse on Geiger Road. Pauline told me once that they picked masses of peonies and built a bank of flowers in the northwest corner of the living room. That spot became the background for their ceremony.

If memory serves me right, Mom Eichler said that they put the flowers into pickle crocks. I always imagined floor to ceiling flowers. It must have been quite a sight, all those peonies for a June wedding.

Pauline is the oldest of the nine Geiger children who were raised in our farmhouse. Then along came our three children. Through the years, those peony bushes, there must be at least twenty of them, provided lots of color in the yard at the farm, as well as cutting bouquet after cutting bouquet for the kitchen table.

Ed has one peony, a ruffled red with yellow center, that is planted at the lake house and is blossoming this summer. It is a transplant from the farm, so we will be continuing the peony memories here on the shoreline of Lake Huron, as well as at the farm.

Copyright 2013
Wanda Hayes Eichler