Pairs with:

Statement from the Artist:

"Do what you can, where you are, with what you have."

And to this I would add, with whatever energy and time you happen to be enjoying at the moment, and in whatever weather conditions are prevailing...

Though much of my painted work has been of landscape, floral still lifes that have been the dominant constant in my work as an artist over the longest stretch, and that, coincidentally, most completely chart my development as a watercolorist.

The earlier one in this pairing, Conversation with Peonies, was painted in the spring of 2000, while I was recovering from the effects of surgery and radiation after a life-saving medical intervention. In closeup, Conversation depicts a bouquet of pink peonies in a vase that is a reproduction of a Charles Rennie Mackintosh design, on a table. Behind the table is a very ordinary chair painted dark green. The painting was done on 140-pound cold-pressed paper, and is deliberately fairly two-dimensional. I was just glad to have access to fresh peonies, bachelor's buttons and irises.

In the second painting, Tulips, Pewter Pitcher and Silver Tray, from the spring of 2026, I took a bouncier approach to my subject. The support is a piece of 300-pound rough watercolor paper, now one of my preferred papers to work on. I am madly in love with this heavy paper, which allows repeated layers of color to be dropped into place. Discovering Emil Nolde's heavy hand with watercolor some years ago has given me tremendous permission to saturate paper with intense pigment. Yellow tulips may be the stars of the composition, but the deep purple background fabric and its reflection in a Victorian silver tray give the tulips a run for their money.

I worry little about the accuracy of drawing in a watercolor like this one in which the pigments and the paper have shouted out their requests practically before I pick up a brush.