painting of ferns made with bright colors in an expressive style

Gentle Waves was painted between 1/11/21 and 1/17/21. It is painted on unstretched raw canvas with acrylic paint. As I usually do, I was listening to an audio book while I painted, in this case I am still listening to Henry James The Portrait of a Lady as read by Juliet Stevenson (one of my favorite narrators, I listened to Middlemarch read by her and most of Jane Austen).

This painting’s direct subject matter is ferns, spider pants and boat lilies - all plants I am currently wintering with here in Connecticut. But the end result reminds me of exotic seaweed moving in gentle waves. A friend wanted me to call it Seaweed Safari. I think I’ve been a little influenced by spending so much time at the fish tank, some of the structures bear some resemblance to the silicon leaves in Basilton’s (my betta fish) tank. Maybe its all those viral sea shanties going around right now.

Personal context for painting: This painting makes heavy reference to my 2020 painting Ferns, which was a vertical that used a similar color scheme and a similar approach to fern production and sold in late 2020.

This period in history: This painting was done after the Capitol riots but before the Biden inauguration, right around the time of the house voting for impeachment. Personally, I got a new phone with a much better camera, as I think you can tell the difference between the top photo and the bottom two photos.