“Chrysanthemum Garden” 36″ x 48″ oil and metal leaf on canvas – $4,800
Someone once asked me if I sit in the studio and wait to be inspired. Inspiration comes in so many ways for me that sometimes it is overwhelming to keep focused on one painting at a time. Mostly, it is nature in its wonderful forms that keep composing themselves in a painting in my head as I am carefully applying small bits of metal leaf to the background of another painting. As I sit on our deck and have my breakfast, I look at all of the trees and plants in our back yard and I am amazed at how many of them have appeared in my paintings over the years.
Of course, my family and I work on providing more inspiration for the future by planting several different varieties of flowers to expand my subject matter. My gardener daughter is currently tending a crop of spider mum plants that will hopefully blossom this fall in a tremendous display of color and fascinating shapes for me to paint.
The painting above was actually composed from purchased cut flowers and stuck in bottles for me to photograph. The two varieties of chrysanthemums were bright green and white. I had to imagine how they would look if they were growing in a garden and I changed the colors and repeated the shapes of some of the flowers in cut metal leaf. I was pleased that the painting was recently selected in Manhattan Arts, International’s “Healing Power of Color” exhibition. It also is included in the Pomegranate calendar for 2025 which is currently being designed.
At the moment I’m painting a composition of the pine tree in our front yard and a fir tree in our back yard. It will have a complicated blend of both fir and pine needles on branches that overlap. I painted the pine tree in a fall composition last year, but this painting will be a summer scene with more greens.
Please click on the link to see the Manhattan Arts, International website.
Joan Metcalf
