Perennial Bed
30×40″
Acrylic on gallery wrap canvas
@2003 Lucinda Howe
www.lucindahowe.com
$2,400

Do you want to have a garden or to tend a garden?

Do you want to buy a painting or to make a painting?

Do you like to cook or to eat someone else’s cooking?

Sometimes I hear complaints that people don’t make things any more; they just order them from their cell phones.  But I know gardeners who never give up, and every week someone tells me she is taking a painting or cooking class.  It’s very satisfying to make something with your hands, and many people are doing it.

My favorite activities are painting and gardening.  When I get “in the flow”, I lose track of time and tune out worries.  I get lost in combining shapes and colors in pleasing ways.  For me the process is more important than the result.

The painting “Perennial Bed” is one where I had lots of fun with the process.  It’s based on a garden that was on a tour for a daylily society.  It was the most amazing combination of lush plantings and art made from repurposed  junk… rusty bicycles, farm implements, boots, trucks, window frames, doors, etc.  It appeared that a tremendous amount of both work and fun went into it.

I wanted to experience some of that fun in my painting by trying some experimental techniques. I covered the canvas with absorbent ground and let it dry.  Then I used fluid acrylics with a watercolor technique for the loose trees in the background and the light parts of the plants.  The transparent paint allows the light to bounce off the canvas and give the impression of back lighting through the cannas and elephant ears.  The I added opaque paints to further define the bed frame and foreground elements.

What about you?  Do you participate in certain activities because you like the process?  Does it matter how the result works out?  Please leave your comments below.