STORY BEHIND THE ART OF CONNIE SCANLON

17th Annual International

American Society of Botanical Artists at The Horticultural Society of New York

Blueberries

Vaccinium corymbosum

A few years ago, I painted blueberries that were life size, and while I loved the subject, I never felt as though I had come close to capturing their amazing radiance of color. My fingers still had that longing ache to paint them again. I finally decided that enlarging the berries would be the best way to reveal their luscious depth of color. The title of the painting, "Blueberries x 8", actually refers to the berries being magnified eight times rather than the number of the berries. After submitting my titled entry to the HSNY this past April, I had a moment of minor terror when I could not remember how many berries there actually were. Luckily there just happens to also be eight - and my ability to count to ten would not be called into question!

If I were going to describe this artwork to someone who could not visualize it, I would want them to think of blueberries the size of tennis balls, having all of the ridges and dents and shadows greatly magnified to show the beauty of less than perfection. I would tell them that the leaf must have been just delicious because so much of it has been eaten, and that you can almost see the bites and nibbles of the insect on the outside edges! The blueberries are not only the deepest of indigo blue, but also the lime green of early spring and the lightest magenta gradually changing to a rose purple easing into the darkest navy of the mature berry.

I hope that when people look at this painting that they will see how much I loved painting it. Perhaps it is the range of colors in the berries or their absence of perfection that made me enjoy giving them their moment to shine.

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