White star magnolias …oil painting

White star magnolias (6″ x 6″)

More joy painting magnolias! The grey rainy weather we’ve been having is mitigated by the sight of these beautiful blooms along the streets. As with the previous magnolia painting, as well as expressing the feeling of the flowers, an important part was to imply a background while strongly simplifying the actual background that was there.

Tom’s poem reminds us of just how much we appreciate these flowers at the end of a dark and gloomy winter.

Dashing flowers in the dark
ahead of all the dull police
who would lock away the spark
that from the sky just like a thief
they’ve stolen: all the starry light
that twinkles in the winter night!
They’ve run with it into the spring
which to the poor downtrodden brings
a breath of hope to ease the pain
of dreary lives all painted grey
showing them a better way
to stand against the boring grain.
Each petal wild and yet just so:
in dark or day they brightly glow.

image (c) 2018 Hilary Farmer
poem (c) 2018 TJ Radcliffe

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pink star magnolias …oil painting

Pink star magnolia (9″ x 12″)

The residential streets here in Vancouver are all abloom with cherry blossoms and magnolias. To my eye the magnolias are almost strangely exotic in their extravagance …beautiful and ephemeral.

Tom’s poem almost magically catches that quality and that moment.

From tropic climes to temperate tropes
blooming bright, first off the mark,
before their leaves have burst with hopes
of summer sun and sultry dark
deep starry nights of beauty wild:
magnolias cast off their mild
and staid retiring winter manner
throwing out their blossom’s banners
to catch a bee or beetle’s fancy
drawing them into a tryst
while the sun drives off the mist
in morning glow like yellow tansy.
The stars of Earth shine in the trees
where magnolias catch spring’s breeze.

image (c) 2018 Hilary Farmer
poem (c) 2018 TJ Radcliffe

bright peonies …oil painting

bright peonies (8″ x 10″)

I have always loved peonies – those fragrant and generous blooms! This painting is on linen instead of the smooth gessoed panels I usually use. I do love the subtle texture of linen. Maybe that was why, but the painting came together more easily than usual.

Here is Tom’s evocative and powerful poem for these peonies.

Standing stems bear waving flags
of armies conquering the sky
with a joy that never sags
charging forth to do or die
in defense of beauty wild
against the mud that’s ranked and filed
upon the ugly battlefield
where the flowers will not yield
to cold order, hate’s command
that all that lives conform or lose,
bright peonies will dance and choose
to hold their ground and make their stand.
In all the universe so cold
It’s only this we have to hold.

image (c) 2018 Hilary Farmer
poem (c) 2018 TJ Radcliffe

a different beauty …oil painting

a different beauty (6″ x 6″)

The common name of this flower is “spiderwort” but it is much prettier than its name! Apparently, it was native to North America but taken all over the world as an ornamental plant. My title comes from Tom’s lovely poem which celebrates another aspect of this flower!

Behind the darkness lies the light
lurking in the summer sky
as a mouse moves through the night
cool and dark beneath the lie
of leaves that shelter Earth’s rich loam
where small creatures make their homes
hiding from the solar glare
‘neath the flowers unaware
of all the beauty that we see
in petals bright and pistils bare
they know a different beauty there
of secret spaces, safe and free.
Do not forget the life that hides
Beneath this garden’s underside.

image (c) 2018 Hilary Farmer
poem (c) 2018 TJ Radcliffe

summer riot mandala…

summer riot mandala

This one was really asking for vibrancy …and it ended up quite a riot of colour hence the name! Although this mandala is definitely summer themed, since the coming weekend is Easter, if you want, you could imagine those are Easter eggs hidden in there. 😄

Tom seems to have noticed this one was particularly colourful as well!

When too much colour fills the world
it spills into the summer flowers
brightly etched and roughly knurled
raising up their fecund powers
to create new generations
with pollenistic exhalations
spreading life beneath the sun
as the summer’s long days run
from dawn to dusk and back again
the fields of fragrant flowers wave
while dragonflies find what they crave
beneath the summer sun’s long reign.
The world is painted bright and wild
Each colour on the others piled.

image (c) 2018 Hilary Farmer
poem (c) 2018 TJ Radcliffe

rhododendrons …oil painting

rhododendrons (6″ x 6″)

Another in my growing series of small oil paintings of flowers. This one was inspired by pictures I took last year about this time of local flowering bushes. They looked pretty exotic to me with their shiny year round foliage and plump, juicy blooms. I am starting to get used to the different flora here but it still seems a bit strange that it’s now the beginning of spring both on the calendar and for the flowers!

Tom wrote a wonderful poem for this one!

Scarlet dresses sweep and dance
through their brief and heady turn
around the ballroom. They advance
from bud to blossom as they burn
with the blooming life of spring
careless of what summer brings.
For now the moment is their all:
to live as if no Autumn’s fall
will ever mute their colours bright.
Today they reign as princesses
whose beauty n’er diminishes
in the face of time’s swift flight.
Their glow will light all future ways
However short may be their days.

image (c) 2018 Hilary Farmer
poem (c) 2018 TJ Radcliffe

summer cravings mandala…

summer cravings mandala

It has been some time since I posted a mandala! This one was actually started back in January and after a long pause, I finished it this week. It’s a bit early to be craving summer but flowers and such are always a pleasure to draw and I tend to go with whatever evolves out of my meditative mandala creation process. Hopefully looking at it will bring summer to your heart, if not your surroundings!

Here is Tom’s wonderful, playful poem just written for this mandala!

Behold soft pennants brightly waving
above the boldly blooming flowers
awakening Creations’s cravings
beneath a passing summer shower
that waters daisies in the fields
whose petals form a soft white shield
between dry Earth and open sky
where an errant dragon flies
to meet a knight more brave than wise.
All the field’s abuzz with life
awaiting Knight v. Dragon strife
whereby cold truth will conquer lies.
Dry paper blossoms catch the breeze
The dragon glides above the trees.

image (c) 2018 Hilary Farmer
poem (c) 2018 TJ Radcliffe