"Hello Sunshine!" SOLD

8"x6" Oil on Linen Panel,  sold
painted en plein air, alla prima, in Castine, Maine at one of the most glorious gardens I've ever had the privilege in which to paint!

A close up.  

While I was in Castine Maine this past July painting in their Paint-Out, I was invited by my host's next-door neighbor to come "behind the curtain" into the husband & wife's gorgeous yard to paint their beloved gardens.  

Wow!  The gardens they created were magnificent! I was told by my host that they lived in Philadelphia in the heart of the city way up in a highrise apartment and never owned a pot of soil! And they designed it, laid it all out all by themselves!  They achieved quite an incredible task!

When they purchased their home in Castine, they explained that it was just a box of a house on a rectangle lot: boring!

So being the researchers that they are (I believe they are University Professors) they went to work researching which plants would thrive in that zone and designed sections around their house breaking up the expansive, boring space into several different beautiful gardens.  

Their backyard looked very Zen-like with its neat and tidy spaces of sculptural grasses and rock walls and paths. Their side yard reflected the upper New England picket fences and flowers, but their front yard was an explosion of color and most of that color came from a hillside filled with several varieties of daffodils!  This variety was the largest and most yellow and I was drawn to it because of its sculptural quality as well as the fact that it was so "sunny" and made me happy.

That front yard of theirs was so colorful and plush that it was the landmark that the locals used in order to explain directions to places in relation to it: 

". . . you'll come to the top of the hill and a little to your right you'll see the house with the magnificent front garden. . "

I know that I was invited inside a well kept secret; not one that many are privy to. It is a special thing to be allowed to see inside someone's private sanctuary, but even more so to capture a part of it on canvas.

 

Sold at the Hagan Fine Art Gallery & Studio

27-1/2 State Street

Charleston SC 29401

www.haganfineart.com