A New Leaf

Happy New Year! I could not resist the title of this post, since the New Year is the time we all make resolutions, and vow to turn over a new leaf in certain areas. But the "new leaf" I am writing about is a quite literal one: I've been painting a new plant lately, and one whose leaves are most compelling.

I waited eagerly all fall for the cyclamen to arrive in garden shops. The cyclamen is a cold weather plant, so the plants don't come in until after that first cold snap. They often show up after Thanksgiving, and they are beautiful for Christmas decor. The white ones are my favorites, because I love to paint white things. They always show us that "white" is not actually white. In fact, white can be almost any color, depending on the light and the surrounding objects.

Detail from a recent painting (c) Lesley Powell 2017

I love the cyclamen flowers--some writers have described them as looking like shooting stars. I find that, although they all have an "upswept" look in common, they often take different shapes. Some of them remind me of badminton shuttlecocks.  Others remind me of the Flying Nun (that shows my age--Sally Field fans unite!). Still others look like a windswept figurehead on a ship. (That's how I saw the one of the left, just above). No matter their particular configuration, the flowers are elegant and sculptural. Not unlike the orchids I love to paint.

"Cyclamen II"
12 x 9, Oil on Canvas
(c) Lesley Powell 2017

The cyclamen leaves are also a noteworthy feature of the plant--and very intimidating to paint. Gardener's Supply says that the leaves are "embroidered with intricate, silver patterns." And there are certainly lots of them! I challenged myself to simplify both the leaves and the flowers of the cyclamen. I kept in mind the words of that great painter of flowers, Georgia O'Keefe. O'Keefe said: "Nothing is less real than realism...details are confusing...it is only be selection, by elimination, by emphasis that we get at the real meaning of things."

This one's still on the easel...

Well, I would not compare myself to Georgia O'Keefe, but I do share her philosophy of simplification.  You can let me know how well I did in avoiding confusing details and capturing the real personality of the cyclamen. Check out the images of the finished paintings here. Thanks for looking!

A Christmas Card

"Snowbound"
John Henry Twachtman, 1895

Merry Christmas!

My Christmas card to you faithful readers: "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas"--and this beautiful painting inspires me. Wishing you and all your loved ones the joy, love and peace of Christmas--now and throughout the New Year.

For some beautiful images pointing the way
to the Nativity,
check out my Nativity post here.

A Numbers Game

It's that time of the year again, when I clean out my studio for the Holiday Open House. This is without doubt the most thorough cleaning that my studio gets all year! The first step is to put away all of my scraps of fabric and still life props (see below). These things have a tendency to multiply--I rationalize that I never know when I might need a certain color, or certain size object, to complete a composition! The next (and hardest) step is to select a group of paintings to show at the event--and to store the rest of the paintings out of sight. The idea is to create a well-curated display, and to eliminate distracting clutter.

Because my storage space is limited, this is a good time to purge a few paintings that just never made the mark. Some of the paintngs are old ones, that I have held for years. They often have a small passage that I really love, which keeps me from throwing them away. I have harbored the hope that the rest of the canvas could be brought up to snuff. Alas, that hope is almost never fulfilled So out they go.

I am not alone in destroying old work. You can read about some creative approaches to destruction here. Sometimes when I look at the discarded canvases, I lament the wasted effort. I feel frustrated that I could not make the paintings "work". But I remind myself of the  very wise words that I read in the book Art & Fear. The authors wrote, "The function of the overwhelming majority of your artwork is simply to teach you how to make the small fraction of your artwork that soars." They noted that even the failed paintings are essential. I might say that ESPECIALLY the failed paintings are essential. Why? Because in one's failures lie the lessons that lead to future successes. 

I think of this as another version of the 80/20 rule: Eighty percent of your work serves as a foundation for the other twenty percent that really soars. Or in the words of an esteemed painter friend, "Some days we produce; other days we learn." And so we carry on...