watercolor painting of squash blossom by emily weil

daily painting | squash blossom

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Have you ever had fried squash blossoms in an upscale restaurant? They are amazingly delicate and yummy. So my taste buds got activated as I spotted this growing in a neighbor’s garden. There’s something quite beautiful and approachable about these lovely golden blooms — and they perfectly match my cadmium-yellow-medium watercolors. I was going to paint today anyways but when I came home after my farmer’s market shopping expedition (luscious dahlias and strawberries!) there was a small group of painters along the walkway outside my marina and several were creating paintings of my home, so it was great fun to say hello and be inspired by these artists (hope to join that group of sketchers in the future). If I can manage to stay only in this moment — a skill that comes and goes — there are so many pleasures to enjoy and absorb, from farmer’s market plenitude to making dinner for a sweet friend to scoping out a nearby bounteous zucchini patch to waving at the goatee’d goats (ha!) at Maker’s Farm when I whiz by on my bike to watching happy little goldfinches discover my feeder to (just now!) being visited by a young night heron just feet from me, alighting on my deck railing. Of course these are the moments that comprise one’s life, and when I can slow down my monkey brain and absorb these sparkly gifts I feel grateful and amazed.

10″ x 7″ watercolor, pen on paper = $90

 

 

 

watercolor painting of nasturtiums by emily weil

daily painting | lynda’s nasties

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Don’t you think that nasturtiums are about the sweetest posies ever? So accessible, with their cheery bright oranges and yellows. As a kid I remember walking home from school and along the way there was a riot of nasties in a neighbor’s front yard, and if you plucked a blossom, you could suck the nectar out of the little pointy end of the flower. Sweet and delicious, and it was a slightly naughty thing to do (maybe I was imagining I was a hummingbird). My kind neighbor Lynda grows these and sent me a lovely photo of her bouquet. I find fresh flowers lift my spirits. Their beauty is temporary, fragile and fleeting, and must be appreciated in the moment. 

Today’s grief update: I don’t mean to brag, but I totally got out of bed today. 

10″ x 7″ watercolor, pen on paper = $90

SOLD

 

 

 

daily painting | back fence nasties

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Last weekend when I took a wet painting out into our back studio garden to dry in the sun, these nasturtiums were growing up the fence and I was smitten with the bright sunny blooms. Today I find solace in painting that scene of twisting, twirling vines and orangey-yellow blossoms against the dark fence. The colors of the flowers are cheery, as are the bright green, veined leaves that cling so fiercely to the dark boards woven through the cyclone fence background. Sloshing watercolors around on paper today is comforting me as I seem to be veering from the shock of my sister’s death into depression, loneliness and deep grief. But here I am, still upright, one foot in front of the other, as my mother used to say. Storms do pass. And jeez what a year of swirling, violent, catastrophic tempests. This particular weather system may be parking itself at my door for awhile. [And as I write this I am greeted by the chitters of the hummingbirds at the feeder — exotic, beautiful and etherial creatures, they are. I so love their visitations.]

9″ x 12″ watercolor, pen on paper = $140