Hollyhocks and My Bucket Babies

Pink Hollyhocks

8x8 Oil on Canvas

by

Cheri Wollenberg

Hollyhocks are an old fashioned flower.  Every time my husband and I take a trip to New Mexico I have a desire to have them all over our farm landscape.  This year I planted some from seed in seeding beds.  My sister (who is a wonderful gardener) said that sometimes they are very hard to transplant to the garden from the seedlings, but I think mine are going to make it.  Oklahoma, especially where we live, has such extremes...high wind one day, lots of rain, no rain, very humid, very dry....on and on.  Anyway, I have protected those babies in buckets with the bottoms cut out......until they are very established they will stay in their little "bucket home".  All this to say that I love them.  I love flowers period and I have such a desire to paint every kind of flower.  I have some digital images I took of hollyhocks at our home in Arkansas filed away in my computer.  I took a look at them yesterday.  This one spoke to me and I painted a small 8x8 painting late yesterday and last night.  I am practicing for when my "bucket babies" are grown and I can paint them live.  Until then painting from a picture will satisfy me.  I have this painting for sale in my Etsy shop.  You are welcome to visit there.

Green Pear and Orange Persimmons

 

Orange Persimmons and Green Pear

6x12 Oil on Linen

by

Cheri Wollenberg

 

When I was a child we didn't have "high-tech" tools and toys.  In fact, the year I enrolled in college at Oklahoma State University as a student I was "only an IBM card".  Some readers may know exactly what I'm talking about, but in summary, computers were so large they took up huge rooms in  buildings,  and their information or data was coded on....in this case.....perforated or punched IBM cards or extremely long perforated paper!!!!  If your card was lost....you were lost as a student until they could find the card.  Oh well, to get to my "main" story...losing anyone that might have been interested....persimmons was a mystery to me as a child.  I broke open the seeds and there was a knife and spoon!  I pondered on that a great deal.  In Oklahoma the wild persimmons are small fruit and so bitter it makes your teeth hurt if you should bite into one that is not extremely ripe.  I thought of this as I was painting this little still life!  As noted above, I included the finished product along with the original still life that I painted from although it is very small in the background.  I have more persimmon stories I must share sometime:)  This painting is listed in my Etsy store.  Please visit.