Summertime Blues (and Purples)
plein air painting in my neighbor's yard.
“I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where it was always June.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island
Lucy Maude Montgomery, author of Anne of Green Gables, had it right, June is a wonderful time of year. Here in Charlotte, it hasn't gotten too hot yet but the flowers are in glorious bloom!
As a painter, you start to look for complimentary (opposite on the color wheel) and analogous (beside each other on the color wheel) color combinations in your surroundings. I absolutely love hydrangeas and all the nuances of blues and purples they can display in one bloom! Their colors vary so that in the mountains, they can be a vibrant lime green and near the coast, almost a navy or cobalt blue.
When we moved into our house, I decided that I wanted to stick with just a blue/purple and white garden theme to compliment the sage green trim on our house. I pictured a yard full of sky-blue blooms, sage foliage and a bit of white here and there. (Does everyone think this way or is it just me?)
Anyway, I learned soon after, that most blue-flowering plants do not take full sun and that is what we have on most of the front of the house. By August, when the sun is at it's most intense, that becomes a real issue. But I persevered, adding plants every year in my color range--Veronica, lavenders, irises, white daffodils, pansies, lobelia, salvia and a couple of varieties of my beloved hydrangeas. Some make it and some (many) don't. I even painted my two iron porch benches purple to match.
A couple of years ago I visited a nearby yard sale. The owners were two men who walked the neighborhoods every morning. I recognized them, but they didn't know me. When they asked which house was mine and I started to describe it, they simultaneously blurted out, "Purple flowers!" We all nervously chuckled, and I've wondered since if I've needed to add a complimentary color to my landscape so as to not be the crazy "purple flower lady"
It's been fifteen years since moving in, and my hydrangeas have been relegated to the shady parts of the back yard. I was lucky to cut a few blossoms for a still life in the studio the other day and titled it after the variety, "Endless Summer". That bush will bloom all summer long. And as a change of pace, I joined our local plein air group which arranged to paint in a neighbor's beautiful garden along a lake this week. Where did I find myself? You guessed it--near the blue hydrangea, incorporating it into my quick 8" x10" before a light summer rain started.
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island
Lucy Maude Montgomery, author of Anne of Green Gables, had it right, June is a wonderful time of year. Here in Charlotte, it hasn't gotten too hot yet but the flowers are in glorious bloom!
As a painter, you start to look for complimentary (opposite on the color wheel) and analogous (beside each other on the color wheel) color combinations in your surroundings. I absolutely love hydrangeas and all the nuances of blues and purples they can display in one bloom! Their colors vary so that in the mountains, they can be a vibrant lime green and near the coast, almost a navy or cobalt blue.
When we moved into our house, I decided that I wanted to stick with just a blue/purple and white garden theme to compliment the sage green trim on our house. I pictured a yard full of sky-blue blooms, sage foliage and a bit of white here and there. (Does everyone think this way or is it just me?)
Anyway, I learned soon after, that most blue-flowering plants do not take full sun and that is what we have on most of the front of the house. By August, when the sun is at it's most intense, that becomes a real issue. But I persevered, adding plants every year in my color range--Veronica, lavenders, irises, white daffodils, pansies, lobelia, salvia and a couple of varieties of my beloved hydrangeas. Some make it and some (many) don't. I even painted my two iron porch benches purple to match.
A couple of years ago I visited a nearby yard sale. The owners were two men who walked the neighborhoods every morning. I recognized them, but they didn't know me. When they asked which house was mine and I started to describe it, they simultaneously blurted out, "Purple flowers!" We all nervously chuckled, and I've wondered since if I've needed to add a complimentary color to my landscape so as to not be the crazy "purple flower lady"
It's been fifteen years since moving in, and my hydrangeas have been relegated to the shady parts of the back yard. I was lucky to cut a few blossoms for a still life in the studio the other day and titled it after the variety, "Endless Summer". That bush will bloom all summer long. And as a change of pace, I joined our local plein air group which arranged to paint in a neighbor's beautiful garden along a lake this week. Where did I find myself? You guessed it--near the blue hydrangea, incorporating it into my quick 8" x10" before a light summer rain started.
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