Thursday, October 18, 2012

Studying Cabbage Palms for Better Painting

In my newest painting, which I'll show you soon, three cabbage palms frame one side of the scene. They are seen fairly close up, so needed to be painted quite accurately. Painting a realistic cabbage palm tree proved more complicated than expected. After all, I thought, there were some decently rendered distant palms in some of my paintings, and I had good results with a tropical beach scene that had the island sort of palms near the viewer. Painting them close up was a whole new challenge, humbling, but very interesting.

Cabbage palms (technically the Sabal palmetto, Florida's state tree) are actually quite complex. The fronds in the canopy grow out on various levels as the tree grows taller. In nature, the lower fronds gradually brown, droop, and eventually drop off, sometimes cleanly and sometimes leaving spiky pieces of stem behind (as on the loosely trimmed palms in the photo above). At the national historic site scene I was working on, the browned lower fronds had been regularly trimmed away from the palms, leaving a mostly bright green "lollipop" shaped top. For visual interest, I had decided to add a few browned fronds hanging down, but did incorporate the fairly smooth trunk with no spikes sticking out, just as I saw it at the historic Kingsley Plantation. The plantation is one of our favorite places to visit or to bring out-of-town guests; if you wish, you can view previous Kingsley Plantation posts here.

As I worked to learn more about the cabbage palm, my mentor, Linda Blondheim, advised me and provided one of her own printed tutorials with detailed pointers on painting various species of palm trees. The tutorials may be available from Linda--here is a way to contact her. I also viewed dozens of palms on a perfectly timed weekend watching the dogs at our kids' beach town home while they were away. The yard of their home has gorgeous stands of palm trees, Then, just the shortest walk in their area provided many more palms to study and photograph--each with its own unique form and character. That weekend, I sketched a few palms and parts of palms to get a good feel for them and took dozens of photos, some showing a whole tree or stand of trees, others mid-range, and some intense close-ups for information about details. Back in the studio, the painting flowed much more successfully--will post the results soon.




By the way, please bear with me for a couple of months with less frequent posts. Mark is recovering well from recent rotator cuff repair surgery, and I go in next week for total right hip replacement. I plan to prepare a few posts the rest of this week (if all goes well) that can post automatically, but probably two posts a month will be my max for awhile.
Question of the day: Do you also find that one of the joys (and sometimes, frustrations) of creative pursuits is that each new project presents new challenges and opportunities to grow?

10 comments:

  1. I can say a resounding yes to your question of the day, Mary. I loved reading about the palms and I learned something new. I never realized that the spikes I've seen on palm trees are from old branches dropping off the tree. I always wondered what caused that, believe it or not.

    Glad to hear your husband is recovering nicely from the rotator cuff repair. I hope that you feel much better after your surgery and that your healing time is rapid.

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  2. There are alot of palms trees near the Keys west. I want to ask you a question. The cabbage palms trees you have in your photos. Can you eat that kind of cabbage yes or no. I love to eat cabbage very much. I am very glad your husband is doing well after his rotator cuff surgey. I will be praying for you next week. When you have your hip replacment surgery. I hope every thing goes okay for you. next week when you have your hip replacment surgery.

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  3. Hi Sherry! I'm not surprised that you had wondered about the spikes on some palm trees--before we moved to Florida, I would have had no idea about many palm details. Nor would I have realized the amazing variety of palm trees there are in temperate and tropical areas all over the world. Some Florida palms, like the cabbage palm, are native and would have greeted the first Europeans to arrive on our shores. Some others have been cultivated and brought in to the area from elsewhere. Thank you very much for your good wishes for our recoveries from surgery.

    I like cabbage, too, Anonymous friend. The cabbage palm has no parts you can eat that I know of (does anyone know if our native peoples ever utilized any part of it for food?) Like most trees, the so-called cabbage palm (maybe it got that nickname from its shape? I don't know.) does have its own kind of "flower" and "fruit". You can see some "flowers" in the top photo, those white and golden feathery looking things (click or double-click on the photo to see it larger). After the flowering comes the "fruit", usually a thick thumb-shaped tan or golden thing. But I've never seen birds or anyone eating that. I appreciate your prayers for our surgeries and healing.

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  4. Thank you for the nice comment! Your blog is beautiful! I love the seascape painting and the story about the cabbage palms. It's all very interesting and inspiring. Best wishes to you in the coming weeks. I hope you find time for your artwork, it will help to restore your peace of mind :)

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  5. I am thrilled you stopped by, Katherine. I appreciate your kind comments and best wishes. I do hope to be able to return to some painting as soon as I can sit in that chair for a short period of time.

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  6. I love all of you painting very much to. There two i the most. Your dog looking at the trulte. And the trulte in the sand at the beach.

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  7. I'm glad you like the turtle photos and the paintings; thank you.

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  8. I hope you can paint again after your surgery. I love all of your paintings very much. I miss seeing your paintings very much. Good luck with your surgery this week. I will be thinking aboat you what ever day you have your surgery on.

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  9. I hope your hip surgery went okay today. I was praying for you today. I hope you will do your paintings again after you get well. I love seeing all of your paintings very much.

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