Story behind the art of Mary Dillon

26th Annual International

American Society of Botanical Artists and Marin Art and Garden Center

Go Lovely Rose - 'Ville de Roeulx'

Rosa 'Ville de Roeulx'

In October 2020, I went in search of a rose to use as a subject for my workshop ‘Romantic Blooms in Watercolor’ for the 2020 ASBA Online conference. With its bright pink flowers, Rosa ‘Ville de Roeulx’ caught my eye. Following the conference, I noticed how stunningly beautiful it had become, particularly in the aging process. Its character and vibrancy, from bud through to the splendid kaleidoscope of colors it emanated, as it twisted and turned in its dying moments, compelled me to spend time with it. It seemed to encapsulate many of the themes I am drawn to in my art practice, beauty and unbeauty, love and the pain of loss, light and dark - can either be appreciated without the other? Rosa ‘Ville de Roeulx’ seemed to encompass all.

The visceral connection between the plant and my artist's eye - the smell, the touch, the glorious details observed and encapsulated, made for a deeply enriching painting experience. I found that the search for the exact nuance of color required was a captivating challenge as I moved through painting layer upon layer.

The physicality of painting excites me. Painting the first layers, using wet paint on wet paper with spontaneity and fluidity, is joy indeed. Holding the brush with control but so that it lightly and loosely tips and dances over the surface of the paper is like being a ballet dancer en pointe. Mapping out the colors I see creates a base for further layers.

In the second layer, I begin to add to the tonal range by working with more pigment on damp paper with a swaying movement of the brush. Like a tango dancer gliding and swaying over the surface of the paper, my brush has more contact with the paper as I blend and tickle one color into another.

Moving on through further layers, I increase the pigment and lessen the water content of the paint and the paper, so that I begin to deepen the darker tones and create the textures of the petals and the complex network of filaments and anthers at the heart of the rose. By now, my hold of the brush almost likens to yoga movements. Every stroke is slow and considered. I’m in a state of ‘flow’, when I lose all sense of time.

The process of painting is slow. It requires patience and forbearance. It’s personal. Finding myself in that place of ‘flow’, in that still space, is the reward that keeps pulling me back to painting. It’s a place of challenge, stirring me to respond, to move, to make positive changes.

Towards the end stages of this painting, I happened upon the poem, ‘Go, Lovely Rose’, by Edmund Waller.

‘Small is the worth

Of beauty from the light retired;

Bid her come forth,

Suffer herself to be desired,

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Read more about this artist’s work: 25th Annual