Pansies Plein Air

The weather was too perfect to paint indoors but I didn’t feel like driving anywhere. My next door neighbor was out pruning his pansies and he’d pulled out a whole bucketful he was about to put in the compost bin.  Voila! A perfect painting subject. I stuffed a big clump of the pansies into a pitcher and set them on a table in the backyard.

I’d made the pitcher as a gift for my friend Barbara in the late 70s when I was a ceramic artist and she was a silversmith. She’s now a brilliant and prolific ceramic artist herself and she recently gave me the pitcher back. She was no longer using it due to a leaky crack and a house full of her own ceramics. I’ve been enjoying using it in still life set ups while fondly remembering it being filled with Mimosas every year for the annual Easter egg hunt and brunch her family held every year while our kids were growing up.

I knew that time was very limited before the shade moved across the yard onto the table so I worked quickly and had a great time.

Here’ are a couple steps in the work in progress: