Beginnings

12 x 16" original oil

sold

When I was little, I remember watching the news when Yellowstone National Park was on fire in 1988. I lived in Missouri and I don't remember if I had been there just before or a few years after, but even on our little television screen, it was a horrible sight. 

My husband and I have since been to Yellowstone National Park many, many times. The burned areas are growing again, and there are signs posted here and there that say how long the new trees have been growing to give park-goers a sense of how the park can regenerate itself after a fire. 

I guess that is the idea behind this painting. It reminds me of fire, and the lesson I learned watching Yellowstone National Park burn is that fire is sometimes the only way for nature to begin again (insert metaphor for life here). New beginnings are good. 

My method of painting is alla prima. That's just fancy art-talk for "wet on wet all at once." That's why you see white areas where a tulip blossom will go. I paint the whole shape at once instead of in layers where each layer dries before the next layer. It takes some planning to paint the whole shape at once because you have to know where darks and lights are going to go, but this way of painting translucent petals comes most naturally to me. 

 I worked on this painting in a few places at various events, but here are photos from when I brought it along on a recent "Painting in the Plaza" event at Illume Gallery of Fine Art in City Creek. If you have never been to Illume, you are missing out. There is art there to feed your soul! Illume can help you acquire any of my available paintings.