Bluebonnets may not hold a monopoly on spring color in the Lone Star State, but they aren’t easy flowers to ignore. Landscape paintings of bluebonnets are iconic legacies of early Texas artists like Julian Onderdonk. See an Onderdonk, you nostalgically think “Texas”.
Bluebonnets are such dramatic native Texans, they find a way to captivate us, spring after spring. When I think of my never-rooted-in-one-place Texas childhood, I think of dust storms and blizzards; tropical gardens and hurricanes; seagulls skimming white waves. And bluebonnets. Always, bluebonnets.
It’s frankly shocking to see endlessly rolling pastures of blue spread before you. Surreal. Blue is the color of sky and water, but it’s rare to see bright blue in the tangle of grass and foliage that other flowers generously sprinkle with their more mundane yellows and pinks, lilacs and oranges and scarlets. You see bluebonnets, and you realize you’ve been whisked into a special moment in time and surrounded in Quiet Magic. The roadside, that pasture isn’t supposed to be bright blue. Wow. BLUE blue. Blue, all over the place.
And then, as if an afterthought, Indian paintbrush wave their pretty scarlet heads above that ocean of blue— “Just saying ‘hi’, we’re in here too.” Indian paintbrushes aren’t pushy about claiming attention in a bank of bluebonnets. They know they’re gorgeous in bright red. They don’t have to shout it to the world.
And the old oaks? (Talk about iconic!) A little bent, a little broken, the old oaks are historical guardians of central Texas and hill country, and they stand tall and proud, their leaves singing softly in the breeze that hums along the old wire of the meandering fence. (“Good fences make good neighbors”, especially in rural Texas.)
Painting this intimate bluebonnet scene, I first had a conversation with those lively trees and their ever-moving leaves and branches. The trees anchor the unruly cactus, the weathered fence posts, the waving grass and colorful flowers. The trees hold the magic within this moment.
Framing this pastel in sustainable wood, protecting it under non-reflective museum acrylic was the only way to go. In choosing the simple but elegant molding, I actually felt like I was building this painting a homestead, a place to tell its story and share its magic over generations. I think it’s the best of my bluebonnet paintings. At least for now (there are springs yet to come).
May you feel the warmth of the Texas sun on your skin, hear the soft clattering of oak leaves, see bold blue flowers laughing in the grass. May you find a way to hold this moment, to return to it like we Texas artists revisit bluebonnets, come spring. Beauty, like Indian paintbrushes, exists in the gaps. Take notice. You might enter into a moment of Quiet Magic.
under TruVue museum acrylic, custom framed in sustainable wood moulding
