Poofy Flowers....

I grew up with a mother that had a passion for gardening...like my grandmother and great grandmother.....when my grandmother sold her house on California Street in DC, I remember my mother and father going to dig up some wonderful hydrangea for their new house in Bethesda Maryland...these plants were planted along the side of the old screened porch...and there they are to this day unless the people that bought my parents house around 6 years ago or so...removed them....I can't think why....they were always amazing...so big...what we kids referred to as poofy flowers since Hydrangea seemed hard to say.....
this is a custom wreath I painted for a customer last month...she has a real love of flowers.....I find this kind of flower picky to paint in needlepoint...you have to be careful to not overdo with shading......the trick is to fool the eye and make the flowers seem poofy...
Isn't it strange how a flower can bring all sorts of memories flooding back....I lost my mother this May...just a couple of weeks before her 82 birthday.......her name was June...born in June ...how fitting, for someone that had a green thumb...even her African violets she grew in her kitchen window above the sink were prettier than any I have ever seen......
unfortunately, I did not inherit the family green thumb...I can't stand bugs and dirt under my nails and plants are truly in trouble in my care....cactus is my thing...the only plants I have ever been able to keep....
I can remember my mother always having a huge bunch of fresh flowers gracing the table ...lilacs, her prize winning roses , and the wonderful smell of lilies of the valley which she grew under a big shade tree at the back of the porch....
I guess it is fitting that I can draw and paint flowers ...they are safe in needlepoint......needing no special light, water or egg shells and coffee grounds...I can't remember which plants need caffeine, but my mother always had the right mixture and extras....she would love these flowers in needlepoint.....when I first started to design needlepoint I painted her eight chair seats for her dining room...each chair had a bunch of her favorite flowers......I can't remember just how many flowers we included...but she would sit and discuss each flower and why that one was her favorite...until she thought of the next...they were all her favorites.....but it was the gardenia that she always wore on holidays.....the funniest one came from our little local florist ....it was delivered with a little stuffed turkey in the box...I had bought a couple of these little turkeys for decorations and the florist must have been confused and added one in the box with her corsage... I always had it delivered with a little card ......I was just a special thing I did....when the box was delivered and she open it , everyone laughed...and I believe she wore the Turkey along with corsage at Thanksgiving dinner......typical of my crazy mother.....my biggest fan and such fun !