Painting the Spring

Unidentified tree bud. Watercolor on paper, about 5" x 7".

My friend Dave Bonta taught me a new word yesterday: ecdysis. It's the process of an arthropod moulting its exoskeleton. We were talking about these paintings, which I first posted on Instagram. I said I had recently become fascinated by the swelling and bursting of buds on plants, especially trees, and Dave remarked that budburst each spring has every bit as much drama as ecdysis in the animal kingdom. (For the other language geeks out there, the word comes from the ancient Greek ἐκδύω (ekduo), "to take off, strip off.")

Unidentified tree bud. Watercolor on paper, about 4" x 4".

He's right about that drama, but in all these years of wandering the woods and pathways in spring and looking at wildflowers and ferns, I've never really paid that much attention to the trees. You can't ignore a magnolia tree or crabapple in bud, but if we're talking about ordinary trees, well...  Like most of us, I always notice and love the first haze of red buds on the maples and the pale green that one day changes the hillsides and city streets from the scratchy traces of bare brown branches against grey sky to the softness that heralds the true start of spring. I've brought maple branches into the house before, trailing huge cascades of maple flowers, and I've noticed willow catkins. But as for the particularity of what is actually happening at each of those millions and millions of buds on hundreds of different species of trees -- I really had no idea.

Violet. Watercolor on paper, about 4" x 5".

This year, I've gone out into Montreal's alleys and green spaces during the past week and taken a closer look. In one park, beneath a large tree -- an ash, maybe? I can't tell until it leafs out -- the ground was completely covered with the hard, burst shells of the bud casings - each a perfect almond-shape in a beautiful polished ochre. If nature had provided trees with sound, none of us would be able to hear right now, because the noise of what is happening would be deafening.

Forsythia. Watercolor and acrylic on paper, about 7" x 5".

Of course, all the other plants are coming back to new life, too, and we humans tend to be drawn to color and showiness. I felt like this year I wanted, instead, to look for the simple and the unexpected - the small common things under our feet, the single blossoms of plants like forsythia that we usually see as a mass of color, and the unusual forms of flowers bursting from tree buds.

Magnolia. Watercolor and gouache on paper, about 7" x 7".

And I realize it's wrong to say I haven't noticed at all before, because it's those vast bouquets above my head that make my eyes itch and my nose sneeze each year at this time. Right now I don't mind; what bothers me is that I just can't keep up with this fast-moving and extravagant show at all.

(These paintings are not [yet?] listed at my online gallery, but if you're ever interested in anything you see here that isn't there, please just send me an email to inquire.)

Comments

[Peter]

I believe it was H.L. Mencken who first applied the term "ecdysiast" to someone who shed their outer
covering; I can't see the word in its proper context without thinking of its improper one.

[Natalie]

These are fabulous, Beth! Especially the last two. I love the attention you've given, the precision of detail, yet they're not in the least academic or unimaginative. Far from it: the way you've isolated them in space and given them a role, a gesture, is like choreography. And the colours are subtle, atmospheric, tender. I hope you'll go deeper and deeper into this path.

[Beth]

Peter, that is quite a word! I've never heard it before, so thanks for teaching me something new, and amusing to boot.

Thanks, Natalie. I'm grateful for your comments and how you see these. There's certainly a series in process, so we'll see where it goes.