Sometimes it’s the subtle bits in a painting that fascinate and draw me in. The painting by Willem van Aelst that inspired this piece caught my eye because of its patriotic (for Americans) colors in the flowers. But it was the seashell at the bottom of the vase that inspired me. It’s just a little detail, and not even a very important part of the composition. Yet it got me to look closer, and think about why it was there. Then I saw the “face” of a live snail in it and that made me smile. Aelst loved to paint flies and and other realities into his paintings and they always make me happy to look at. For my painting, although I do enjoy looking at caterpillars and ants and such, I don’t think I’d want to hang them on my wall. I prefer my bouquets without insects, thank you very much.
I can imagine this painting in an Outer Banks beach house, right at the entrance to a deck overlooking the ocean.
