A Host of Golden Daffodils, oils on canvas panel, 12" x 9." Contact artist for price.Last week for the first time it was light enough on the way home to see that the steep banks bordering lower Rock Creek Parkway were full of yellow daffodils in bloom. It brought to mind that poem by Wordsworth all of my generation read in high school, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,"
(first stanza):
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
--William Wordsworth, 1804
(I feel sorry for subsequent generations of students who missed learning the wonderful literary works of the English Romantic poets... so-called "Modern Education" has thus impoverished their lives.)
Today was our finest spring day to date. I remembered there is a small hillside at Brookside Gardens that has daffodils planted among birches and thought it would be delightful to paint there.
The gardens were full of young mothers with their offspring, retirees and neighbors out to enjoy the lovely afternoon. I walked around and took some photos before setting up to paint, in case there was something more appealing, but my first instinct was right, this was the prettiest sight to paint.
The scent of daffodils and the witch-hazels perfumed the warm air as I worked. It felt so good to be outside it was hard to concentrate on the basics of painting. I almost lapsed into common beginner mistakes such as starting to focus on individual flowers too early rather than laying down masses of color first. I managed to pull out of it and balance the colors before getting into the details for a nice finish just as the sun was going down behind the hill.
