Art Every Day: F is for Flowers

Tell them dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, Then beauty is its own excuse for being
~Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The Rhodora"



I grew in up the Bronx. My concept of flowers included daisies, roses, scrawny sprigs of lilacs, the creamy gardenias my mother grew in a huge pot on the fire escape and thevivid yellow forsythia bushes that bloomed in the park across the street - the neighborhood harbinger of spring. I noticed flowers, but I never really looked at them. Then I moved to Oregon.

Flowers are everywhere. Flowers are gorgeous. I own a digital camera. I love to take walks. See where I am going with this? I have taken 1000's of digital photos of flowers. We are known to seek out botanical gardens when we travel ... with my camera.

As much as I love to look at, pose and photograph flowers, I think they are difficult to draw. Some of the images I would love to paint are too complex and I am too impatient to diddle in teeny tiny details. But, in honor of this challenge, I drew (is working in color pencil drawing or painting?) this beautiful 'sport' dahlia I found thriving in its new home on a recent trip to Eastern Oregon. When a flower has "sported," (I am told) this means that is shows two colors because its seed is trying to revert to its original color.

This is color pencil on rice paper.