British Horticulture Series - From Start to Finish (Part 1 of 2)
At the beginning of the month I finished my series of British Horticulture paintings! For now! There will probably be another series of paintings dedicated to British Horticulture someday, but for now I am moving onto another topic! But I wanted to do a bit of a recap of the whole series as a wrap up, this is part one of that, and go into some of the details about the paintings individually and what it was like painting them.
I started this series without thinking it would become a series in the middle of January 2019, which was Kew’s Palm House (2019). I started it as a one off painting that I did, trying to get back into painting. I only worked on it when I felt like it and wound up finishing it in February/March 2019. I loved this photo and thought it would make a good painting because the image perfectly encapsulated essence Kew Garden’s Palm House. The thick misty humidity that coats everything in a glorious layer of dew and fills your lungs with the intoxicating smell of plants, the fabulous metal grated floor, and grand exotic plants that fill the beds. I love it all and fantasize about drinking a cup of tea out of a silver tea set while reading a book in a tucked away corner of the Palm House.
It could be said that Kew’s Palm House (2019) was the painting that started it all again, because it really set me on the path of painting seriously again, as this work made me decide to put paintings into my universities Graduation Show that year, as I was graduating! So that set me off into finishing two more paintings to submit a triptych! Those paintings were, Mottisfont Rose Pond (2019) and Sackler’s Crossing (2019).
I loved the rose pond in Mottisfont’s rose garden, it was ethereal and splendid with its cascade of roses gently dipping into the pond. I loved how this image captured both the rosebush, its fallen petals on the waters surface, as well as the clear still water with the rocks glistening up from beneath it. On the less romantic and whimsical side I thought I would paint this because I could use it to teach me how to paint water, and specifically water you could see what is underneath. I was never good at painting water and thought that the only way I am going to learn is to jump into the deep end.
The Sackler Crossing painting plays on the same feelings and images of water but on a larger scale and at a different location, Sackler crossing is the large bronze and black granite footbridge over Kew Garden’s lake. Again, I loved the water. But this time the body of water large and calm, only rippling in the wind and reflecting trees off in its flat surface. It was another teacher for me, to paint bodies of water that are large and reflective. This painting is also larger than all the rest which was an an experiment that I have yet to repeat. I just feel very strongly drawn to small sizes and paintings and that it should remain so.
Portrait of a Mottisfont Rose (2019), is exactly what the name says, a portrait of a rose found at Mottisfont Abbey. I am unsure of what type of rose. I deeply regret not taking a photo of the label while I was there. But nevertheless it will remain the nameless pale pink rose, one of many found in a rose garden. I do think that if one day I would return I could find this dainty rose again as the many photographs I took in the rose garden illustrate the path I took through the garden. I hope that someday I will meet it again in its garden oasis. I digress. I was drawn to this shot of this rose because I loved the rose itself, but also I loved the shapes of colour in the blurred background.
South Kensington Morning (2019) was a shot taken in London. On one of those wonderful summer mornings when the sky is triumphantly clear, the sun is high in the sky, and everything is lush. Anything is possible on these such mornings. Everything that is old now seems new and it is with that spirit that I completed this painting.
This concludes part one of this post, part two will come soon!
Paintings and celebrations,
L. C. Cariou