FLOWERS

"Flower"

Mixed Media Drawing on Antique Parchment

18" x 24"

I have loved working on large pages.  Thanks to a wonderful friend who works at a local print shop, I can work on these 18" x 24" old sheets of fragile parchment that she has carefully digitized with a page from one of my dictionaries.

I got very nostalgic working on this collection of flowers.  Many of the flowers I chose for this piece have significance particularly to the memory of my mother.  She grew up in Kansas and always referred to herself as a sunflower.  She loved to garden but always had an uphill battle to get anything to last in the strong prairie winds with little to no rain.

For this piece I included lilacs which grew around our farmhouse, heavenly blue morning glories which covered our white picket pence in the backyard.  I had to include a group of wild roses to remember the roses my grandmother brought in a covered wagon to plant on our homestead - they still grow there.  I also have lilies of the valley and a single lily just for my granddaughter, Lily Jane.

I included some of my favorites - tulips, pansies, gardening tools and seed packets then topped it off with an hydrangea which were the flowers we used in our youngest daughter's wedding.