Brushes and Flowers with Red Basket Painting is just a small vignette from my studio table. I’ve been working on some paintings, as usually I’ve put a handful of brushes in an old jug to have them ready. As I cannot live without flowers there have been some fresh twigs full of white blossoms, just in case I’d paint them. An old ceramic basket where I keep some important unimportant items I love has, who knows how, found it’s way to be just near the jug with flowers. Working on a recent canvas I’ve wanted to reach for a brush as I’ve suddenly noticed this still life just in front of me, it’s been so perfectly real I knew I’ve wanted to paint it. In a moment the wet canvas on the easel has been changed with a new one and I’ve hurried to catch this simple vignette reminding me that each day consists of at least some magical moments, moments when we can see trough the light of everyday to embrace a small particle of eternity……
Brushes, white flowers and a red basket contemporary still life Tamara Jare original painting oil on canvas
Daffodils are among the first spring flowers in our garden. Their yellow and white blossoms seem as a sort of floral stars, or little suns perhaps, reflecting the strong sunlight of early spring. As this year unusual April snow was predicted, I picked a bouquet of daffodils, to save at least some of them. Indeed next morning snow came, turning the landscape back to winter, silhouettes of near by hills appeared like cut from white paper against the bright blue sky with many clouds bringing even more snow. Daffodils bouquet in green glass vase by the window reflected all those shades of the late April snow. Flower petals appeared almost as made from glassine paper, catching the scarce warmth from the morning sun rays into their translucent shapes. What an abundance of the light caught in the shades of the daffodil’s yellows and whites against the sharp colors of the landscape! Just a feast to paint!
Variation in blue is a still life I’ve painted back in 2018. This small format oil on linen is still dear to my heart.
Painting a still life by me usually starts with a small walk around my garden. It is a sort of meditation, preparation for the painting process. Which flowers would I pick depends on the mood of the moment. And, obviously, it depends on the time of the year in the garden. Spring is always joyous, bringing first colors to the nature, then comes the summer with all the richness of the blossoming plants, fall again has it’s own colors, just as beautiful.
But at that time, when I wanted to pick at least something from the garden to paint, there was November. And not much around the garden to pick For at that late autumn time garden is usually still, frozen on time, waiting for first snow to come on it’s cold mornings.
So instead, I took some chrysanthemums from the bouquet in our living room. Just some white and blue blossoms for the small vase. And painted them immediately, capturing those blue and white hues, trying to catch light of that November morning before the snow fell to our garden…….
Viburnum, more accurately the snow ball bush, is among the spring bloomers in the garden. Each year I can hardly wait for its round blossoms in form of small snow balls. Odorless, they would appear almost apple green at the beginning and day by day they turn more and more white. It can be the spring summer light, of their botanical properties, I don’t know, but the viburnum blossoms finally turn out crisp white, like snow, contrasting the blue April or May skies. Even the end of blossoming period is spectacular, milliards of small white patches cover the grass beneath the bush, appearing as fresh snow falling down from nowhere.
My Viburnum bouquet painting is just one more from the painting series “From my window”. For as new blossoms appear in the garden I have to pick them for a vase, just to take the bouquet to my painting studio. And later I always find myself painting them. Which I love doing, I have to admit. Especially as it turns out it is not just still life painting depicting nature morte per se. No, on the contrary, it always is much more. Basically it appears to be a sort of a visual diary, mirroring the feelings of the day. There are days when skies seem dark blue, there are days when sky appears almost greenish and there are days with small white cumulus-es over the almost turquoise painted sky. And always all those colors reflect to color the flowers on my table near the window. Which is rather interesting as it’s always been assumed blossoming flowers have their own colors. Yes, they do, to a certain extent, but majority of colors painting a bouquet would always come from the sky and from the sun and from the greenery of the hills seen from my window. Which all, consequently appear to be the colors of the mood of the day. So you can see all those colors in my painting Viburnum. Crisp white blossoms resembling snow balls are white, yes. But they are also extremely full of colors, colors of the sky, garden, hills. Just all the colors I love so much I have to paint them day after day. For the world is a miracle to see!
Wiburnum on my window Tamara Jare contemporary still life
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