Client: Private client.

Overview

The colors and textures of a dahlia garden are celebrated in this Art Nouveau inspired painting.

Goals

So, I get a message from a lovely woman who wanted me to paint a dahlia garden for her newly redesigned home. She shared with me that dahlias were her favorite flower, followed only by zinnias, as they reminded her of her mother, whom she picked dahlias for and brought them to her when her children were young. The old-fashioned feel of the flower, and the peachy-pink tone felt nostalgic, emotional, and worthy of a commissioned painting.

Process

We started out walking through a cutting garden on a large working farm that featured rows of dahlias. This being the garden she used to visit to pick the flowers for her mother. The rows were broken up only by rows of zinnias, purple, blush, and orange. Given the composition she was considering was of an unkempt garden one would see in a private space or back yard, the vast space of the cutting garden did not match what she had envisioned for the painting.

Using photos I took from our excursion and a professional photograph taken by a friend, I created an imaginary garden in photoshop . Eventually, the composition came into view and I was ready to paint the garden that reflected her memories with her mother.

Additional Information

The bright colors and textured surface of this painting are made possible due to the materials I use. I am a pulp painter. I work with cotton and abaca fibers beaten for up to 20 hours in my Hollander Beater. The Hollander Beater is designed after the water wheels of Holland-thus its name. The machine is able to beat fibers into finely textured pulp which is then pigmented with light-fast (non-fading) color and used as a painting or sculpting media. The texture of the pulp comes through in the surface of the painting, mimicking the textures and colors found organically in nature.