Seeing Color
LOVE...
Hello,
I’m tickled that Valentine’s Day falls on a newsletter day! And, like frosting on a cupcake or sprinkles on ice cream, for those of us in the Pacific Northwest, it’s the first day of the Northwest Flower & Garden Festival, which is where I’ll be for the rest of the week, gaping at gardens, lapping up lectures, and kibitzing with friends I haven’t seen in a year or more. So let’s keep this brief.
I’m so glad you’re here.
xo Lorene
I love hue
February 7, 2024
You know, just a color study of random leaf litter on my art desk.
I’m slipping toward color field studies, if you can call mottled washes a “field.” Not always successful and way outside my comfort zone but interesting to mess around with. If the garden has taught me anything it’s that growth means change.
February 8, 2024
Dear Daphne — tucked in the far of the back garden, her fragrance floods the crisp days of February. She suffers freezes poorly and often looks like a molting chicken, sheepishly dignified with few leaves.
The ritual clipping of tiny awkward sprigs brought indoors lift dark mid-winter days and lodge in our memory — my daughter called it the “smelly flower”.
February 9, 2024
As seed sowing season approaches, it’s time for my regular but by no means routine astonishment at the fact that seed is everything, everything is seed. Well, not ferns but whatever.
“Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. — Mary Oliver
February 10, 2024
“Here honey, I got this for you on my walk.”
Welcome to my quiet little corner of the internet. Thanks to my “shallot palette,” I’ve got lots of new followers — it’s all a bit overwhelming. I like things quiet… remember?
Whenever people first see my work they ask:
What paints I do I use? A definite hi/low mix, which is to say a mashup of “special” paints, typically gifted to me, although I did spring for 3 Daniel Smith greens, and an assortment of - not less “special”, just less precious paints. I go into my detail in an entry in Subscriber Resource Library (for paid subscribers)
Did I paint the flower/shell/twig/shallot or just the colors ?— emphatically, just the color swatches.
Do I sell my paintings/prints? YES! On my website
I thought I’d illustrate what the painting looks like compared to the color swatch photo. So that’s the HOW of this daily practice. The WHY is a bit more layered.
February 12, 2024
“Do you think amethysts can be the souls of good violets?” — L.M. Montgomery
In my heart’s calendar, winter is over — the sweet violets are blooming. Slightly nibbled, certainly weedy, Viola odorata will always be welcome in my garden. The potent fragrance belies such a shy bloom and yet my love for this plant is immodest.
February 14, 2024
Tending
Today, extraordinary human and environmental loss and devastation is laid bare, raw, and intense. British theologian and novelist, Charles Williams wrote of “substituted love”—the notion that through acts of love we can ease the anxiety and even physical pain of others, whether they are family and friends, or unknown strangers. We all have the capacity to hold a thought, a loved one, even our flawed world, up to the light to see how it shines.
Tiny and far from showy, Tulipa polychroma is a species tulip native to steppe regions of the Middle East. The bulb blooms in early spring with subtle colors that mirror those of our precious, fragile, resilient, blue green planet. A subtle reminder to focus on our impact on the people and places that are our privilege and our responsibility to tend.
— essay from my book Color In and Out of the Garden
In the Shop
Today is Valentine’s Day but that doesn’t mean you can’t send out love notes tomorrow and the day after, and the day after that. All postcards in my online store are still on sale. Each postcard is 4.75 inches square and may be purchased with or without mailing envelopes. It will probably surprise no one that I’m partial to this pink set. Your loved ones are waiting to hear from you. Or, maybe you’d like to frame a print or two (or 6)
Lorene it's so lovely to find you here on Substack! It was fabulous to see you in Seattle last week
I'm with your daughter on the daphne . . . I like the way they look but can't abide the smell. When ours died (after 20 years or so), I didn't replace it.