My Impression of Evening Primrose

10″x8″  original pastel on sanded paper.  This painting has beautiful brushstroke and color.

There is beauty all around us, often mixed up in things that are not very beautiful. I paint exactly how the flowers feel, without the power lines, or houses, or cars. As I enjoy this year’s wildflowers I remember this quote from Monet:

“Try to forget what objects you have before you a tree, a house, a field, or whatever. Merely think, ‘Here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow’ and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact color and shape until it gives you your own impression of the scener before you.”

-Claude Monet

Appreciate the beauty – ignore or deemphasize the rest…perhaps that is good advice for more than landscape paintings.