Wildflower Series: Sketching to Printing on Fabric

The wildflowers are blooming! Since I told many people I planned on doing a wildflower series for reproduction onto fabric, there were no two ways about it, I had to get out there and get sketching this week.

Glacier Lilies or Yellow Avalanche Lily: Erythronium grandiflorum is one of the earliest flowers in the British Columbia Kootenays and thus is very important to Crestonites. Every year you will hear someone say, "The avalanche lilies are out". Here they grow on moist open slopes, often facing west it seems and at the edge of the forest.

 

Two other people joined me for sketching the glacier lilies. We basically sat in a ditch and I am sure the passersby thought "What the heck are those people doing?" We ignored them being so engrossed in what we were doing. D couldn't believe two hours had gone by before the sun shone on us and we were too warm to stay longer.

This is not my finished piece but I find it imperative to sketch or paint from life to really get to notice the finer details. I think I now have enough information to work up a piece in the studio. My plans are to work within an 8" square for later reproduction of the black and white sketch onto cloth.
 

 

Trillium: The flower grows on one stalk and is often white. In the deep forest where I have seen it grow, the white seems iridescent. I didn't have to leave my yard to sketch these three blooms as they grow beside a path I walk daily. For years there was only a single bloom and this year for the first time there were the three blooms! If you like sketching flowers, now is the time to get out on location. Enjoy!