GARDEN ART AND FLOWER STILL LIFE PAINTINGS

Hanne Lore Koehler:

"Most of my still life paintings depict a deeper meaning and emotion than is initially apparent. Through the use of visual metaphors, I try to create an atmosphere, a mood, a story. A rickety old overgrown hand-operated water pump in the garden stands like a monument to good times and magnificent moments or as a sentinel guarding precious blooms. Remnants of broken clay pots, rusty watering cans and galvanized buckets are testament to glory days past. Although these are essentially still life paintings, summer breezes echo through the swaying plants and in the flow of the paintings. The elusive shadows of dappled sunlight remind us of the passing of time. Enjoy while you can!

"My parents were avid gardeners and appreciated the beauty of each bloom. Their love for their garden was passed on to me. I can spend hours planting, transplanting, arranging rocks, building stone pathways, trimming shrubs, dead-heading flowers, etc. - getting lost in my happy chores. As I watch our children with their homes and lovely yards, I realize that I had the same influence on them.

To me, gardening is relaxing while excercising at the same time. The bonus is creating a beautiful environment while achieving a sense of accomplishment. Although at times it seems like "gardening" is a euphemism for "weeding" and the chore can get overwhelming when other things in life are more urgent, there is still a sense of satisfaction to getting the job done. I hope that my love of gardening is reflected in my paintings. An interesting old garden shed bursting with garden tools, wheelbarrow, old galvanized watering cans, clay pots, tulip, daffodil and gladiola bulbs sorted for planting are fascinating subjects to paint for me. Wind chimes, bird houses, decorative vines and rock walls are intriguing and when the last glimmer of sunlight of the day highlights the red tones of the terra cotta pot with a crack and broken chard, the scene has captured my heart and I am compeled to paint it.

With all the work that needs to be done in the garden, I find that I do most of my painting during the winter months. This is where the camera comes in handy. Recent technology has made the digital camera an invaluable tool for contemporary artists. We are able to take countless photos of the garden, different plants and spectacular blooms under different lighting conditions. Since the life of a flower is usually shorter than the time it takes to paint it and lighting changes from moment to moment, I find the camera is the only way to freeze that moment in time where the lighting is perfect, the bloom amazing. I find that painting a summer garden scene or flower during the winter brings twice the pleasure. I am engrossed in the detail of the bloom and forget about the blizard outside my window.

To be clear, I only use photographs as reference material for my original paintings, often producing detailed pencil drawings on the canvas before I paint. My paintings are hand-painted original paintings usually done in my studio by looking at a photograph of the subject as if I were sitting in my garden looking at the actual scene or flower. They are NOT painted over top of a mechanically reproduced photograph."