This month’s big project is painting a floral still life of my niece’s wedding bouquet.
May is a busy month for a botanical artist in northern New Mexico! The weather is warming up and the early wildflowers are beginning to bloom—if the winter snows have been good. Field sketching season begins in earnest this month. Tragically, this year the Cerro Pelado wildfire, and the Cook’s Peak/Hermit’s Peak wildfires have been ravaging the national forests in the Jemez and Las Vegas/Mora areas.
This month I’ll be working on painting the wedding bouquet of my youngest niece. It will be interesting to try working in a less fanatically detailed, yet still realistic style.
I also will be doing planning, researching and sketching to tackle the Santa Fe cholla plate that has stymied me for so long.
Finally, I want to get some detailed research drawings and studies on Penstemon strictus, Iris missouriensis, and a small penstemon that grows on the trail in my subdivision.
Oh yeah, and I’d also really like to get a piece ready to enter the Trinity Wharf Buoy competition. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves!
What about you? What creative endeavors have you got planned for this month? Please share your project ideas in the comments!