A Bird in the Hand

As I was finishing this painting, I felt that it might be the last one in the series of what I think of as my mother's garden on the other side. They have all happened on the canvas without models or references, except for the iris in the last two paintings which I happened to see in a neighbouring garden.

 I am now looking at sunflowers for a commissioned painting, a watercolour featuring two sunflowers with some symbolism attached to it. It will take some planning, but the end result, I hope, will be recognizably mine. There's a poem about sunflowers that I've loved ever since I studied the Italian poet Montale in college. These lines will be in my mind as I paint. The original Italian is beautiful, but here's the gist of it in English.

Bring me a sunflower

that I may plant it in my salt-burned earth

...

Bring me a sunflower

maddened with light

Simplicity is the removal of the useless and the unnecessary--source unknown