I made some cute pillows to cozy it up a little, and the landing was looking much better, but it still needed something on the wall above the bench.
Finally, one day, I had an idea – I’d do a series of botanical paintings! Two rows with four paintings in each row. Eight paintings of flowers that bloom around our home in the summertime. I would fill the wall with flowers!
Number three in the series is this painting of the cheery yellow coreopsis that come up every spring by my back steps. This quote by John Zabat-Zinn is one of my all-time favorites.
The last painting I finished that summer was this one of the crown vetch that covers the roadsides here in Pennsylvania and has invaded some of our hay fields. It’s not the best thing to have growing in the fields, but as long as it’s there, I’m enjoying the pretty pink blossoms.
Don’t you love the line in this quote about the “dreamy and magical light” of summer? That’s the way it is some summer mornings – so dreamy and perfect that you just want to hold onto it and remember that moment when the temperature, the light, the birdsong, the grass, the flowers, and the puffy white clouds in the deep blue sky all come together to say “It’s here! Summer is here!”
Now you may be wondering where the other four paintings are that I planned to use to “fill my wall with flowers.” Well, I kind of petered out at the end of that summer, and the other four paintings haven’t even been started yet. I hung the four finished ones above my cute bench and, ever the optimist, left room above them for the others which have yet to be painted.
Maybe I’ll get to it this summer, maybe not, but I promise that eventually I’ll fill that wall, because there are morning glories, roses, hydrangeas, and daisies right outside my door, just begging to be painted.
2 Comments
Leslie, I love that! So beautiful!
beautiful paintings! love the balloon flower – don't know that one at all!