DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

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..Ok, sorry.  It's been a year since I posted.  That's the trouble with blogs, unless blogging is your main business. 
And of course, it's not.

My daughter raises the coolest "grandma flowers"...Zinnias, Asters, Cosmos, you name it, and she has a knack for throwing them in a jar to make beautiful arrangements. Soooo.....
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Schlepping around in the studio, I found one stretched linen canvas...painted Cadmium Red (11 x 14")....Long forgotten, and not any idea what I originally intended to do with it.

We happened to have a bouquet of Amy's flowers downstairs, and I brought them up to the studio.  No changes, just set them in front of a dark background.  Fished out my Magenta and Cad Yellow, and went to town.  
I've got to say, that Cad Red seemed to make the colors sing.  (#1)

Feeling a little guilty for making a "realistic" flower painting, I immediately stretched a larger canvas (24 x 24") and worked to make the same bouquet a little more "contemporary". Hmmm (#2)

Oh my god, I found another Cad Red linen canvas (11 x 14")
Was visiting Amy, and asked her if she had some more arrangements.  Well, duh!  She disappeared outside and came in with a handful of flowers from her garden and poked them in a jar, and, well you know, there came #3.

I liked #3 enough that I stretched another 24 x 24" canvas and painted a part of it very large and very simple.  This time I added the white outline track that I use so often in my cubist paintings.  Wham Bam! I'm in love!

The next painting (#5) was on a 12 x 12" canvas, (cad red, of course), and I painted another of Amy's arrangements.  White track outline made my eyes travel around the painting.  (Hopefully your's too)
Ordered more 11 x 14" prestretched linen canvases.  I'm on a roll.

Waiting for delivery, I found an 8 x 10" canvas, and primed it cad red.  that little daffodil painting succummed to the white track disease, and became what I would call "an illustration".  (#6)  I'm filing this thought with hopes of painting a larger one with less geometry when the Linens come in.

Aha!  The Linens came in!  I reworked #5 design for the next 11 x 14" linen.  I restrained myself on the geometry.  This is (#6)

Lastly, I primed a 12 x 12" canvas (Cad Red) and painted from a photo of a bouquet that Amy brought her mom a year ago.  All Purple, and so big and fat that it threatened to burst out of the canvas.  My wife went "ahhhhh."  Everyone went "ahhhhh".  That was (#7).

Long story short, Amy is still harvesting flowers, and I'm still loving the Cad Red thing.  Lots of Linen canvases in the studio. New tube of Cad Red (expensive).  I'm on a roll.

Like I said....It's a rabbit hole.