Patterns and Color in My Garden

@2012, Claudia Ballard, Fancy Cock, framed 8x10 acrylic on canvas panel

Sometimes my garden provides valuable inspiration. The simplicity of the repeated shapes, the round cabbages with their ruffled skirts in green and bluish purple, the (mostly straight) rows of greens: pale buttery green lettuce, shiny dark emerald spinach, smooth bright green mustards, and feathery carrot tops. Lots of contrasts in texture and values. Now if I can just remember to use all of that when I paint!

It is amazing how much you can grow in one tiny plot. When we lived on the farm we had a huge 50 x 100 foot family garden with rows of beans, onions, corn, squash, etc. Now I am happy with a 4 x 8 foot raised bed that my husband built for me that is just a few feet off my kitchen door. I have learned that the more you pack into it, the happier the plants are. We save the pine straw from the yard to use as mulch both to retain moisture and to protect from the heat of the sun and frosty mornings. Nothing is quite as tasty as fresh-picked produce on the dinner table.

The Great Creative Adventure Begins

@2011 Claudia Ballard, Grandpa's Barn, 8x10 acrylic on canvas panel

My amazing mother made sure that growing up we always had a cigar box full of crayons, watercolor and tempera paints, lots of paper, and anything else that would spark our creativity.  Later our neighbor, who was an elderly Russian gentleman and an accomplished artist before arthritis crippled his hands, was generous enough to pass along a beginning artist’s oil set when I had just entered my teens.  As I fingered the canvas, brushes, table easel, palette, and of course, paints, I thought I had the greatest treasure possible.  

Life takes lots of twists and turns and I spent many years pursuing my love of quilting…which in my mind was painting with fabric.  Several years ago to cope with the stress of caregiving, I found myself coming back to the easel, this time to watercolors and then acrylics.  When I am painting, everything around me slows down and I can focus on the story unfolding on my canvas.   Sometimes you wrangle with the paint trying to make it cooperate and behave on the canvas to finish the image you have in your head.  But always I step away from the finished work and think (no matter how sad it may look), wow, I made that!  There is the marvelous feeling of accomplishment, of having made something with your hands.

Now my good friend, Gainesville artist Linda Blondheim, has bestowed another generous gift.  Over this next year, I—along with Harold Barrand, Terri West, Lynn Biddlecomb—will benefit from her mentorship.  Hard work, yes.  Scary, yes.   But when we reach the end of this year, I hope to stand back from my easel and say I am a better artist….and that the adventure is just beginning.