Seeing Details

I remember teaching a class many years ago in painting - to a group of ladies for whom an intensive course in color theory just wasn't necessary at the time. Instead, I just taught them the basics of mixing color pigments to achieve what they wanted. My opening line to them was "What color is green?" - they just looked kind of blank, and someone said, "green is green. blue and yellow mixed." Soooo I told them to go outside and take a look. It was spring, and there were pine trees and dogwood trees, and all kinds of newly leafed out things, so green involved many many different looks. Then we learned to mix green to match what they saw. They had so much fun doing this, it was difficult to get them to do anything else - like move on to mixing purple or whatever. (I only buy a minimum number of tubes of paint, as I have better control with as close to the primaries as possible - I never buy orange or purple, for example) But that isn't the subject of this entry. I do go on and on sometimes. Noticing the details that sometimes we overlook is the point - the very small details that make life so delightful if we just take a moment to see them. (like how many "colors of green" outside in the spring!) This is the center of a Gerbera daisy that was in a vase in my daughter's kitchen. I had walked right by it several times, and admired the cobalt vase and the pretty pink blossom, but had not really LOOKED at it - isn't the center a work of art in itself?? When I really looked at it, I was so enchanted I had to get a good picture. I don't know how I might use it - I'm thinking maybe just a small canvas painting to hang on the wall, or maybe a painting on a square of pine with the grain showing through. Lots of possibilities here, and it is certainly worth preserving in some way for continuing enjoyment. Actually, today is a beautiful day, so a trip outside to the flower bed might be a good thing - to find more previously unnoticed small but lovely details to enhance my day. P.S. Pity Georgia O'Keefe didn't do needlepoint! Her big, single flowers would have been wonderful in that medium. I was looking at this picture again, and thinking I could figure out how to do justice to that center if I really work on it - fanciful fibers and a few French knots here and there, I think.