I have to face it. This winter here in the Hudson Valley is a dud. I know, I know, there's still more winter to come but I can recognize a pattern when I see one. This one says "No Snow." And I love snow.

Recently I was out with Maggie in the gray afternoon thinking a pretty bouquet might lift my funk when I realized that I didn't have to go over to Green Cottage for flowers. I could pick an interesting assortment of drying things; leaves of red and brown, gray-brown Queen Anne's Lace, and some of those other things, all appropriately decomposing like my mood. But I felt my mood improving. You can see in the photo of the things I chose that they made a pleasing arrangement. I took them home, took that photo, and was about to place the weeds in a vase when I noticed all the little dust and seeds falling. I began to sneeze wildly. The bouquet ended up back in the woods but I had an image and an idea for a watercolor.

The drying bouquet is hanging, as you can see, tied with a ribbon. I added the falling dust and seeds just for fun. There are goats in my vicinity but not right next door. The view out the window of goats in the snow is wishful.

The original watercolor is 11" x 14" and available in my Etsy shop here:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/265830673/watercolor-painting-original-a-room-with?ref=shop_home_active_1
Prints of the image are available here:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/265937368/art-print-original-watercolor-a-room?ref=listing-shop-header-1

And shipping is free on any order with this code, good through January 31.
FREESHIP

There's a lot of Queen Anne's Lace along the road these days. I started photographing it as reference for this series of weed paintings and only then noticed that many of the flower heads have a single deep purple flower right in the center. Apparently there's some legend about a lace making contest among a queen's handmaids and a pricked finger and a drop of blood of course. But the thing that surprised and somewhat dismayed me is that I'd never noticed the purple flower before. I've seen these weeds forever and had simply never noticed.

Prints of the painting and the painting itself will appear in my Etsy shop sometime soon.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/NatalieWargin