The Guardian of the Lady's Slippers - SOLD

The Guardian of the Lady's Slippers
16" x 16" x 1"
Acrylic on wood

Here is my latest work, The Guardian of the Lady's Slippers.

It was a very labour intensive piece as the plant, the background and the vessel were highly intricate. I like to challenge myself and was uneasy all the way through the painting process, but perseverance prevailed. I'm very pleased with the end result.

This artwork was inspired by the lady's slippers growing near my pond. I was informed by expert gardening friends of mine that they are fragile and require an ideal environment to thrive. It made me want to preserve them in a painting.

 This is my pond. The lady's Slippers grow where the red arrow is pointing. When the shot was taken, the blooms were spent.

Here they are on a rainy spring day.

The vessel I used for inspiration was this beautiful Delft jardiniere. I loved the snakes on each sides. 

I changed the proportion making it deeper to accommodate the root system of my lady's slippers, and I made the central scene, Chinese instead of Dutch. 

Appropriate for the Chinoiserie theme of the painting.

Below are progress shots of this work.

I decided to remove the two human characters as I felt they were superfluous to the composition and distracting from the main subjects.

As I like to incorporate little creatures in my paintings, it was only natural that I would depict a green garden snake. I have many of those gentle beings in my garden.

Thank you for the interest.