Hortensie (522)

"Hortensie (522)", oil on canvas, 24x24 in. For sale on Etsy.

A vivid vermilion caracal sits among hydrangea blooms. I call her Hortensie. There are three layers to the painting. The blue hydrangea was a real silk hydrangea sitting in front of me while I painted. The caracal was my drawing from a photo in a library book. The background was my drawing of a still image from a Vine video that I made of cut hydrangeas for sale at my local Trader Joe's store.

I use randomizers to select my subjects and colors. My main color was Hortensie, a shade of light blue and color #522 in Naomi Kuno's Colorscape book. My secondary color was vermilion. The Hortensie color name provided one of my subjects; "hortensie" is the German word for "hydrangea". My other randomly selected topic was African wildlife. When I studied African wildlife books, I liked the lesser-known caracal (Latin name Caracal caracal, nice and easy to remember...). Caracals are not superstars like lions, leopards and cheetahs, but they have a very distinct and memorable appearance with their flamboyant, lynx-like ear tufts.

The soundtrack for this painting was a Pandora station based on jazz music by Dafnis Prieto. I selected it because I searched for a place with music and hydrangeas. That search led me online to Madison Square Park in NYC. Dafnis Prieto is one of several musicians who have performed at the park, which has displays of hydrangeas in its gardens.