Paintings & Stories: 11. Inspired by Winter Wind

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                         Indian Hemp in Winter, Apocynum cannabinum, Watercolor, ©Heeyoung Kim
Artists can find beauty from totally unexpected things. On a very windy winter day I was walking at a park in my neighborhood. All dry branches, twigs and empty seedpods were dancing to the wind, but all in one direction. Those lines that were set by wind caught my eyes. 

When I looked around carefully, I found some interesting twigs with seedpods in varied colors: some were more brown still with lots of yellow, but some others very gray, but with beautiful blue. I could see brown ones were from that year, and gray ones were from the previous year.  Of course I could not pass the bluish branch, as blue is my absolute favorite color. 

As soon as I came home, I started to draw the lines right on Strathmore Bristol board (plate finished), very spontaneously without pre-sketch. Basically, the whole painting was done with blue, gray, purple and yellow.  This 'simple' and spontaneous painting gave me great joy during the windy, cold and snowy Chicago winter.   

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