Meadow Rue

This piece was a commission job for a collector. The subject is the purple flowers in the foreground known as Mountain Meadow Rue. These are not native Montana wildflowers however I made the exception and included them in my wildflower series because I'm not judgmental like that. I put a lot of work into this piece and reworked that sky three times before I "loved it". It reminds me a lot of my dad. He had a real soft spot for that evening orange light when the sun is falling into the horizon. This interesting flower grows more like a shrub or a bush and has a charming shape that changes as it comes into bloom. They start off as many small little bulbs or pods growing off the many main stems and as they mature they bloom open as a bell. They range in many colors from pink, lavender, fuchsia, and yellow. This painting like many was a new approach for me when applying chromatic pigment and the challenges met when layering it with regular opaque paint. The result is very dramatic floral watercolor and the painting takes on many moods and variations throughout the day.