Forgotten Flowers

The beginnings of one of my most epic floral paintings…

In 2021, during the deep pandemic days, I found myself fully immersed in the world of flowers. My garden was lush, my cut flowers were so prolific I even sold them to local florists. Art imitates life as they say, and so it was during this time that my art took a permanent turn into the garden. I began obsessively painting flowers. Flowers in watercolor, in pastel, in acrylic, and most of all oil. I had a deep desire to preserve a bloom in its depth and richness. So I painted in thick butter strokes and carved through the paint in graphite to preserve my signature whimsy. Like a stick in soil, the shape of a flower was born onto canvas.

This process worked well on a small scale because the artworks could be completed faster and the paint remained wet long enough for me to carve through the artwork with my pencil or the back end of a paintbrush. But I was desperate to go big. There was a challenge here. Oil paint is most magical when painted in layers and often needs time to set between those layers. Additionally, the scale of a pencil tip on a small work is visible, but on something ten times the size I was not even sure you would see it. The question remained, how could I paint a big, buttery, textured painting of flowers from my garden on a huge scale.

I did not solve this overnight. I began with a study to nail down the composition. Oil paint and large canvases are expensive. Materials alone for a 30 x 30 inch oil painting run around four hundred dollars. I had to get it right. Once I knew what I was painting, a bundle of blooms that I particularly loved, and successfully recreated the image on a small scale, it was time to commit.

Surprisingly, the painting came together with ease. I worked first in underlayers to block in the low values, the dark colors, and built the painting toward the light. I went thicker and thicker with some of my favorite colors from European oil paint brands. Lastly, I realized the solution to the pencil scale problem could be solved by switching to charcoal. When the painting was complete in color and the texture resembled cold cake frosting, I went in with a stick of charcoal and added my illustrative lining. It was perfect. I loved it so much that once the painting fully cured, around six months later, I varnished it in damar varnish so that it could theoretically last for a thousand years.

under painting in progress

I knew it would look stunning in a living space with bright light so that the angle of the sun could pick up the texture. As the light shifted, the shadows of the oil paint would move, revealing a slightly different painting with every hour. Or maybe it belonged in a nursery, the perfect companion to a new life. What better way for a baby to wake up every day than to be greeted by big red, pink, and purple flowers, with a little bee tucked inside.

“Flowers to be Remembered” 30 × 30” oil on canvas. 2021.

I saw so much for this painting…this artwork I spent nearly a year creating. And yet, it remained with me. First hanging in my studio as a reminder of what I could achieve creatively. Growing flowers, arranging them, photographing them, then immortalizing them in a painting bigger than they could ever dream of being. Then it moved to my home office, bringing a bit of the garden into a space that felt very serious and human. Eventually it moved to the stack of unsold artworks in the corner of my studio as I needed to make space for new ideas and new projects.

Then yesterday, I saw it again. Five years after its birth, and I knew it was time for it to find its forever home. I do not know who that is or where it will go, but I do know that it is ready. Click below if she calls to you <3.

With love and flowers,

Michaela Jean