Roots and All

 

This morning I knocked over a spider plant and saw the roots were all bound up in a shape resembling the pot. Luckily I got it back into the pot no trouble and added some soil. Before work started I took the chance to make a quick abstract painting inspired by the root bound plant. The weather was actually perfect for outdoor painting today but I was tied to the computer all day for Thursday's pharmacology class. Most of the painting relies on yellow orange and earth colours, with a thin wash of phthalo blue with the yellow to create green. You could say that I was also feeling root bound stuck in a pot!

Root Bound, 4 x 6" hot press 300lbs, watercolour, November 2020

With the new catalogue spreadsheet I can easily word search for themes. The word root was included in a few titles for example Rooted Up, which I already blogged about. In the painting shown above, I sat on the edge of a river embankment looking at a massive tree stump eroding, and the river down below. It was a very technical painting that took longer than usual. The details of the river and reflection on the right create an exaggerated since of height. Looking back on this one, it is amazing that I got the full range of earth tones when all I had was burnt sienna and a limited palette. If I could send a tube of 'Umber' back in time I think it would have been very useful!

London Tree Roots, Cliff, River, 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, 2004, (No. 0779) 

And an abstract from not too long ago, done around the time of our last trip to Brazil. It was a metaphor for Cilei, who flies to Brazil to revisit her home, to reconnect with her family roots. It is very sunny and tropical there, although at the moment she is there visiting it is raining a lot. 

Flying Home, (Roots and All),  10.5 x 15", watercolour paper, watercolour, 2017 (No. 1825)