The first time I ever tried to paint anything in oils, I tried to paint flowers. Dried flowers, dead flowers – they did not move or change over the weeks I spent agonizing, trying to make them live on canvas.

My love affair and my failure to live up to the potential of seductive blooms haunts me still. I watch flowers dying on our countertop and want to paint them up close, working into the intricacies of their tiny bells and great green lushnesses.

The affair is doomed, I fear. Flowers, beautiful flowers, ugly flowers, discarded flowers – they are tempresses all with so little to yield. They are directionless all, floating in discreet bunches on stalks that lead to nowhere. No visual interest, too much linearity, such glimmering color that you can’t help but want to taste them with a brush.

It’s doomed, I say, doomed.

But I still won’t let it go.

   

I wish the painted version looked as good on paper as I think it does in this photo. But it doesn’t.
posted by Diane at 2:20 AM |