Lilypads at the Houston Arboretum

This morning I drove over to the Houston Arboretum to paint. I got there at 8:00 a.m. and hiked 15 minutes over to the lily pond. I started with a 16″ x 20″ canvas, which I soon found out was too ambitious. After an hour I had blocked in the pond, clumps of lilypads, the shore behind the pond and the tree line behind the pond. Way too much! 16″ x 20″ may not sound like a big canvas, but it was taking me forever to cover it. I wiped off the tree line and shore line, thinking I would just make the painting about the lilypads and the water, which is what interests me anyway, but I ended up with an even bigger mess. So that canvas was put aside.

I had made the effort to go out there and paint so I didn’t want to go home just yet. I had a 4″x4″ canvas with me so I decided to focus just on a few lilypads and paint those. It still probably took me an hour to do this little painting, but I was happy with it. Then I wiped off my brushes and started to pack up. I was about to scrape off the paint left on my palette and then I thought, I have all this paint laid out, why don’t I get another small canvas and try another painting?

So I did. By now the sun was a bit higher, it was probably 11:00 a.m. and the lilypads were more green than they were this morning. In the morning the lilypads reflect more of the blue sky and look much ‘cooler’, but as the sun (and the temperature!) climb, everything just gets greener.
It would be a wonderful project to paint the lilypads every hour starting at sunrise. Each little painting takes me about an hour, after I finish one I would just set that aside and start the next. That would be a great way to see how the color of the lilypads and the water change as the sun gets more intense. I certainly don’t mean I could paint for 12 hours straight (!) but I could do 3 or 4 in the morning, then another 3 or 4 starting in the late afternoon. Something to think about . . . . Though this has the sound of one of those projects that I dream up that end up being too ambitious.
It’s too bad these paintings are only 4″x4″, though I can use them as studies to paint a larger painting in my studio. That will be another challenge. A challenge like the large canvas I started out with this morning. Though it didn’t work out, I’m glad I attempted that large canvas. I won’t grow as an artist if I only paint the paintings that I know will work out. Though, in truth, I never know a painting will work out when I start it, but some paintings have a better chance than others before I even pick up a brush.
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