I finished this thistle design last week and I'm painting in another new design today. I'm having fun coming up with bold, graphic, color saturated designs as I come down the home stretch of my folk flower series. I've been looking at a lot of the embroidery work on Polish and Hungarian festive clothing. The motifs are seeping into my brain and coming out on paper. As I paint these simplified flowers and plants I feel a connection to the land and my gardens, the natural world, even while I sit at my desk indoors. It's a pleasant feeling like one I have while I slowly and meditatively weed my gardens at home.

I paint these images and dream of trying to learn and take up embroidery at some point in the future. What would happen if I mixed embroidered elements into the paintings? I think it would be fun to try. Also I'm noticing, probably because of the graphic, simple, yet precise quality to this work, I'm dreaming of painting bigger and looser in the next round of creations once I'm finished with the two series I'm working on. I need to let loose a bit. I'm looking forward to playing more freely with the next round of bigger work.