from Garden to Canvas

*fresh cut flowers from my garden ready for their painting session*

The most complete and fulfilling artistic process I exercise is nurturing a flower in its complete capacity. In other words, when I grow a flower from seed to full bloom, then harvest said flower and thereafter paint it! I feel completely connected to nature at the highest level. I find that here I am quite literally CO-CREATING with the earth.

*The finished painting of the above shown still life!*

Many times, I photograph the flowers as they cannot bloom year-round For example sometimes a girl just might want to paint a rose in February, can you blame her? But the paintings I do from life are a little extra special as the process is timely and delicate, just like the blooms themselves.

I love challenging myself with new and interesting flowers, but below I have listed three of my absolute favorites to grow and paint.

1. Larkspur:

This flower is amazing in a garden as she is not aggressive and blooms kindly among any other plants. But she’s not submissive! Larkspur is a spiked blooming flower and therefore stands tall and upright. When painting I love the subtle shifts of purple, gray and blues that come from her star shaped flowers. They always add a nice vertical element to a composition.

*Film photo of purple Larkspur from my barn garden.*

2. Sunflower:

The sunflower, the smiley-est of flowers is a staple in any cottage gardens like my own. She is easy to grow and always brings a sort of farm like whimsy to an outdoor space. When painting sunflowers I love how they pull your eye right into the artwork, so much so that you can’t look away!

*The bay barn with sunflowers and a pug :).*

3. Nasturtiums:

Honestly, I am as surprised as you are, because in my early days of gardening I…I can’t believe I am going to say this, but… I didn’t like this flower. Gasp! I know, Michaela not liking a flower, the blasphemy! I was new to the plant world and at that point was still focused on the *Beyoncé’s* of flowers like roses, ranunculus, and dahlias. Now, I love the underdogs. Enter nasturtiums. This flower is edible (it’s a surprising peppery flavor) easy to grow, so much so that she does basically it all by herself. This plant has the most interesting circular leaves and bright colored petals. When painting- the leaves and vines offer visual interest to the composition and her flower shape is a relatively forgiving form, meaning if you mess up it, it still looks like a nasturtium.