Painting Monet - More Buried Treasure

I found more photographs while dumping out ancient files - these were dated 1996, so were taken long before I had either a digital camera or a computer. There are even shadows at the top right of this one, as I had taken it outdoors for good light.

I painted this for myself (copyright thing, etc. so I never marketed it), just to see if I could do it. It isn't the prettiest canvas I ever painted, but I will say it was the greatest challenge, the most difficult, and I thoroughly enjoyed it - and achieved what I wanted to do.

Being always mindful of painting to make the stitching easy and relaxing, I wanted to anchor the lily pads as they float on the water, but yet give the water depth and show the reflection of the trees.
The lilies and their pads appear very colorful, but if you look at the close-up, you can see that there are actually very few colors, and those are painted simply for easy stitching.

The colors used are just "generic" enough that one could choose any of several ranges of the hues used. One would not have to stick absolutely to the color on the canvas.

The second detail shows the reflected trees with the lily pads floating on the surface of the water. This was the most difficult effect I've ever worked out. The trees had to be easy to stitch - but still kind of fuzzy like a reflection.

The water is smeared looking only because I was going to do it myself, and just wanted to cover the canvas. If it were a commercial canvas, I would have smoothed out the paint so it would look nicer in a shop. There was a second canvas - a pink one - that disappeared.

Monet painted these water lily pieces in several different colors - even green. This flower pot was inspired by one of the green paintings.

When I was first back in Austin, I still wasn't painting needlepoint canvases again yet, but started doing decorative accessories for Breed and Co. here and also the National Wildflower Research Center (Now Lady Bird's Research Center).

For Breed's I did a series of French Impressionist pots, including the saucers, which could be lids for enclosing a gift or candies or something of that nature. I used those little cheap bottles of acrylic paint - the Folk Art or Apple, made by Plaid Enterprises - great paint. It doesn't require a sealer, and I have pots that I painted many years ago that have been outside with plants in them - and they still look fresh.


These were really fun, and very fast to produce, as they were done almost totally with natural sponges, and just smeared onto the pot. The little lilies were put there quickly with a worn out paint brush - just brush strokes.

The next pot is from the painting of "Monet's Roses." It was extremely simple - done all with a wet sponge except for the little roses. Those are just dabbed on with an old soft brush.



















Then another water lilies design adapted to a terra cotta flower pot. These are just the simple clay pots you can get at your garden center. Incidentally, if you want to try this yourself, do NOT use the tube acrylics, as they dry with a plastic finish, and water will seep through the walls of the pot and cause blisters and paint peeling off. The bottled paint seems to breathe with the clay, so gives no trouble. Enough is enough for tonight. It's time for tea and a good movie.

This last pot, I'm ashamed to say, is a mystery, as I cannot remember who the painter was. I'm inclined to say it's from Cezanne, as his style with the outlined fruit says so. However, Van Gogh's style also shows in the blue pitcher and flowers. Oh well. The arrow is pointing to a place that is a white paint mark - not something shiny.

Oops! One more. This last one is one of my very favorites of the Van Gogh paintings - his "Flowering Almond Branch."