February Florals Day 28!!! Redvein Enkianthus

Redvein Enkianthus
Copyright 2014 Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
9" x 12" 
SOLD

You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.

-Pablo Neruda

Done!  Finissimo!

For the many folks who encouraged me and contributed inspirational photos as I did this painting challenge- thank you. 

February Florals Day 27: Valentine's Day Gift

Valentine's Day Gift
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil Pastel on Paper
11" x 14"

The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.

-Emerson

This was an experiment for me!

I've never done an impressionist drawing with oil pastels before.

February Florals Day 26: Red Fire

Red Fire
Copyright 2014 Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
9" x 12"

like a red fire

touching the grass,

the cold water.

There is only one question:

how to love this world.

-Mary Oliver, "Spring"

February Florals Day 25: A World Where Roses Bloom

A World Where Roses Bloom
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
8" x 10"
Original Available on Etsy

I'm in a world apart

A world where roses bloom.

-From "La Vie En Rose" Lyrics

February Florals Day 24: The Motion of Light

The Motion of Light
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
8" x 10"
SOLD

Enigma with Flower 

Victory. It has come late, I had not learnt

how to arrive, like the lily, at will,

the white figure, that pierces

the motionless eternity of earth,

pushing at clear, faint, form,

till the hour strikes: that clay,

with a white ray, or a spur of milk.

Shedding of clothing, the thick darkness of soil,

on whose cliff the fair flower advances,

till the flag of its whiteness

defeats the contemptible deep of night,

and, from the motion of light,

spills itself in astonished seed.

-Pablo Neruda

February Florals Day 23: Shadow is a Color

Shadow is a Color
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
9" x 12"

Shadow is a color as light is,

but less brilliant;

light and shadow are only the relation of two tones.

-Paul Cezanne

(This was a study that I created during a still-life session for a class I was teaching.  The lesson being that the darkness behind the flowers is what makes them pop forward... we can't have the light without the darkness.)

February Florals Day 22: The Rainbow of Chaos

The Rainbow of Chaos
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
11" x 14"
Original Painting Available on Etsy

We live in a rainbow of chaos.

-Paul Cezanne

February Florals Day 21: Orange Laughter

Orange Laughter
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
9" x 12"
SOLD

Of everything I have seen,

it's you I want to go on seeing:

of everything I've touched,

it's your flesh I want to go on touching.

I love your orange laughter.

I am moved by the sight of you sleeping.

What am I to do, love, loved one?

I don't know how others love

or how people loved in the past.

I live, watching you, loving you.

Being in love is my nature. 

-Pablo Neruda

February Florals Day 20: The Bright Bouquet

The Bright Bouquet
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Museum Quality Panel
16" x 20"

The springtime's pallid landscape

Will glow like bright bouquet,

Though drifted deep in parian

The village lies to-day.

The lilacs, bending many a year,

With purple load will hang:

The bees will not forget the tune

Their old forefathers sang.

The rose will redden in the bog,

The aster on the hill

Her everlasting fashion set,

And covenant gentians frill,

Till summer folds her miracle

As women do their gown,

Or priests adjust the symbols

When sacrament is done.

-Emily Dickinson, LXXIII

Where I live in Indiana we have just beaten the record with over 51 inches of snow this year!  

We are so ready for spring it hurts.  

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder."  Yes

February Florals Day 19: A Handful of Flowers

A Handful of Flowers
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Museum Quality Panel
9" x 12"
SOLD

Oh! hearts that weep, and are prone to yield

To the touch of gloom in this world of ours,

Go search yourselves, and you'll always find

That there still remains a handful of flowers.

-Mary Dow Brine

February Florals Day 18: Within the Flower

Within the Flower
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
8" x 10"

I HIDE myself within my flower,

That wearing on your breast,

You, unsuspecting, wear me too-

And angles know the rest.

I hide myself within my flower,

That, fading from your vase,

You, unsuspecting, feel for me

Almost a loneliness.

-Emily Dickinson

February Florals Day 17: Flowers

Flowers
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
11" x 14"

I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.

-Claude Monet

February Florals Day 16: Tulips

Tulips
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
9" x 12"

But I have always thought that these tulips must have had names. They were red, and orange and red, and red and orange and yellow, like the ember in a nursery fire of a winter's evening. I remember them.

-Neil Gaiman, Coraline

February Florals Day 15: Believe in Beauty

Believe in Beauty Collage on Paper

If you can love one person, you can love anyone.

If you can love yourself, you can love anyone.

If you can see the beauty in one spot on earth, you can see it anywhere.

The whole world is a single flower.

-Seung Sahn

February Florals Day 14: My Mother's Cross Stitch

My mother made this the year before I was born. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

February Florals Day 13: To Bloom

To Bloom
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
12" x 24"

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in the bud

was greater than the risk it took to bloom.

-Anais Nin

February Florals Day 12: Flowers of the Spring

Flowers of the Spring
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvax
8" x 10"
Original Available on Etsy

Now, my fair'st friend,
I would I had some flowers o' the spring that might
Become your time of day; and yours, and yours...

-Shakespeare, A Winter's Tale

(Seriously my friends...
we here in Indiana haven't seen the ground in over a month.
I am officially ready for spring!)

February Florals Day 11: The Perfume of a Rose

The Perfume of a Rose
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
8" x 10"

Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. 

There is really nothing to be said about it. 

It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all.

-W. Somerset Maugham 

February Florals Day 10: Life is the Flower

Life is the Flower
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Panel
8" x 10"

Life is the flower for which love is the honey.

-Victor Hugo

February Florals Day 9: Bouquet of Flowers

Bouquet of Flowers
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
8" x 10"

Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small.

We haven't time, and to see takes time 

- like to have a friend takes time.

-Georgia O'Keeffe

February Florals Day 8: Lily

Lily
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Panel
8" x 10"

Time is jealous of you, and wars against your lilies and your roses.

-Oscar Wilde

February Florals Day 7: The Earth is Never Dead

The Earth is Never Dead
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
8"x 10"

The poetry of the earth is never dead.

-John Keats

 People have been asking to see my process... here are a few snapshots.

Step 1 Laying out the format in Burnt Sienna

Step 2 Laying in the dark tones

February Florals Day 6: Yellow Roses in the Window

Yellow Roses in the Window
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
11" x 14"
SOLD

Art is the child of nature in whom we trace the features of the mothers face.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

February Florals Day 5: Roses on My Table

Roses on My Table
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
11" x 14"

I'd rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck.

-Emma Goldman

February Florals Day 4: Crown Hill Tree

Crown Hill Tree
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
11" x 14"

This is a lovely tree I found in Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis.

Nothing can be created out of nothing.

-Lucretius

February Florals Day 3: Open to the Sun

Open to the Sun
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
8" x 10"
Buy Original Painting on Etsy

Flowers are restful to look at.  They have neither emotions nor conflicts.

-Sigmund Freud

February Florals Day 2: Yellow Roses

Yellow Roses
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
8" x 10"
Buy Original Painting on Etsy

 When I was a teenager I went on a trip to France.  I was very, very excited about the trip.  I had studied French language and art for years beforehand to prepare.  When I arrived I had a wonderful time, but I felt a bit let down.

It wasn't perfect.

It wasn't Shangri-la, a mythical place of perfection.

We are constantly clibing up the mountain to the summit of happiness.  Our fingers clutching at the rocks and dirt, Shangri-la just out of reach.

I walked along the streets of Paris with my group just below Montmartre.  I looked up and hanging from a window was a large banner in English.

It read...

Bloom where you are planted.

February Florals Day 1!

This painting was purchased by my mother somewhere overseas in the 1960s.  As a kid I remember thinking "how can that man see?"  I can also see him as a floral monster... like a centaur, half-man half-beast.  

Or it is me... carrying a big bunch of flowers for you to enjoy?  Check back each day this month for new flower paintings.  I want to get good at flowers.  I want to conquer this beast.

The earth laughs in flowers.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson