Eye Candy

There are days at the Botanic Gardens when everything seems right out of a technicolor movie. 

This afternoon on Evening Island was like that.  There is a path that takes you from the English Gardens, across a winding bridge, through a shadowy tunnel, graced with white and blue flowers.  Emerging from the half light, you turn a corner and there is this blaze of color that just knocks you over.  Gardeners get weak in the knees when they see the Joe Pye Weed in full bloom, interspersed with delicate Russian Sage, with a long stream of bright yellow Coreopsis at the front of the parade.  As you stand there completely entranced, your eye takes in the distant willows with the lagoon sparkling in the sunlight.  I have painted this scene many times, trying to capture what Nature does so easily.  I have never succeeded.