Flourishing

When I first started painting pots, I did a lot of flowers: Iris, daffodils, dandelions even. It was a struggle to sell them, really. Lots of people were painting flowers on pottery, and mine weren't particularly special.

I was really fortunate that I started painting animals, chickens first, then elephants and cats and--well you know where that took me. And people liked them, bought them, and I enjoyed painting them.

And now, 28 years later, I'm getting requests for flowers again. Specific ones, this time: lupine, echinacea, Queen Anne's lace, poppies. I painted this set, posted them to Instagram, and promptly got an order for more, only could I paint a balloon flower instead of the lupine?

As it happens, I could, I'd done two each of the first four, and had an extra I could balloon on. But it makes me wonder: Has the tide of taste changed? Are flowers going to be in demand now? Will I have to stop painting bunnies?

Probably not. And I'm not likely to start putting flowers out on the shelf at Saturday Market, at least not regularly. But I gotta admit, it was fun to try something different again. And I paint them a lot better than I did all those years ago.

Colorizing

I love before-and-after images. People holding their puppies/Great Danes, modeling their new haircuts/cosplay/gender expressions. I just like the feeling of, "Oh, wow, that's changed." 

So here's a before-and-after, glazing. I like the starkness of black-and-white line drawing, I admit, but I also like the "pop" of added color.