Today I visited friend Barbara, a retired art teacher who does beautiful work with paint, fiber, paper, beads and stuff. She has a trained eye and sees potential for art in all sorts of everyday (and not so everyday) shapes and textures. We were meeting to talk about Matisse, among other things, have lunch and just enjoy each other. Barbara showed me some okra pods given her by a friend; they had dried out a bit and really weren't edible at this point. But several of them had the most wonderful reddish color, and they were curling up dramatically. In addition, Barbara had picked some branches of beautyberries, thinking they were worth consideration. I hadn't heard of beautyberries, but here's what they look like:
Beautyberry bush They are bright chartreuse when young, then ripen to this vibrant magenta. The berries are faintly sweet with a prominent seed. Barbara warned that they can have a laxative effect.
Okra and beautyberries-color study One of the okra pods, showing its curve and reddish color.
We played around with these materials, rearranging them and looking at the colors and shapes, and Barbara thought we should try doing a watercolor study of them. I've never done watercolor and had grave doubts, but after all she's a teacher--and what's the worst thing that could happen? A clumsy attempt, a waste of a sheet of paper. Big deal.
Here's the arrangement we made on the left, and my watercolor on the right. I am ridiculously pleased with this first attempt.
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Beautyberries with Okra Copyright Bobbe Shapiro Nolan 2014
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