Gardening and painting have long been intertwined for me. The garden gives me an ever-changing source of color, form, and inspiration. I can spend hours walking through it, noticing the way flowers change from day to day—the color of a petal in morning light, the way a stem bends, or how one flower seems to disappear into the foliage around it.
This summer, I grew many of my garden plants from seed, including the zinnias that became the inspiration for this painting. I planted them in May and watched them slowly develop from tiny seedlings into sturdy plants covered with flowers. By late summer, the zinnias were blooming in abundance. I found myself photographing them again and again, drawn to their colors and the way they seemed to change with the light. Those photographs eventually became the references for paintings in my studio.
The zinnias became my muse.
I am particularly drawn to the way zinnias hold so many colors within a single flower. A pink bloom isn't simply pink. There are warm coral notes, cooler pinks, touches of orange and yellow, and darker tones where the petals overlap. Against the greens and blues of the garden, those colors become even more intense.
That is what I am trying to capture when I paint flowers. I am less interested in making an exact botanical record than in responding to what I see—the color, the movement, the light, and the character of the flowers themselves.
The painting I have just begun is of the zinnias I grew this year. I am still working on it, and at this stage the flowers are emerging from a mixture of loose brushwork and color notes. I don't always know exactly where a painting will take me when I begin. Sometimes the garden gives me the subject, and the painting itself takes over from there.
There is something satisfying about that connection between growing and painting. In the spring, I put a seed into the soil without knowing exactly what it will become. Months later, I find myself standing in front of the finished plant, looking closely at its colors and shapes and trying to translate that experience onto canvas.
The garden gives me an endless supply of subjects. Every season brings something different, and even the same flower can look completely different from one day to the next.
For me, that is part of the pleasure of painting from the garden: there is always another flower waiting to become art.
Senorita
8 in. x 8 in.
Canvas Panel