From the Garden

This painting was done from a photo that I took from my garden when I lived in Vermont. I had a very large perennial garden and my most favorite flower in it was the Purple Coneflower. I had a lot of those flowers planted and every year they would propagate and I'd get more. We lived in the migration path of the Monarch butterflies so every fall, we'd have lots of them stopping by on the way to Mexico. At the end of the summer, my daughter and I would walk our property and look for the caterpillars. We had a habitat for them and lots of milkweed in the yard. We'd bring them inside and watch the metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly each fall. It was amazing to watch the transformation. Once the butterflies came out, I'd gently place them on a coneflower to wait out the duration while their wings dried so they could fly off.

I think this was my most challenging painting thus far. This is on 8 X 10 Strathmore 500 140 lb cold press paper with M. Graham watercolors.