Everything you do today will inform what you do tomorrow.

I’m inspired by wake robins, the quintessential flowers of spring, as they bloom in the woods where I live. The trillium tell me spring is here — or at least the promise of spring. So I sketch and paint them.

Here’s an example  from my journal pages:

And this one that started as a demo and evolved into a painting I just love! It started on 140 pound watercolor paper, treated with matte medium. That technique allows paint to puddle and form oozle “gems” as it dries. It is sketched with a Lyra water soluble graphite pencil.

Then I marbled it… and it virtually glows. Look how the colors in the marbling both hide and highlight the painting color.

So now that the trillium are blooming again, I dug a couple from my orchard to bring in to paint.
I want to go BIG! And LOOSE!
Here’s the painting that resulted, — full sheet and still unfinished. I may marble over this one, too!

Everything is connected and one thing leads to another. 

With trilliums in mind, I glanced at a Sockeye painting, and that started me thinking about salmon. Now I’m imagining fish painted in the style of these trilliums!

But first, more trilliums. I’m making four paintings on 6×6 inch canvases for Village Gallery’s Art Challenge fundraiser that opens Saturday, May 9th and trillium seem like the right subject for the technique I want to use.