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Summer Painting of Plums

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Thank goodness I love plums. I have a Shiro Japanese plum tree in my backyard that gives me 2,000 plums most years. I work really hard to use as many as I can, and my refrigerator is comically filled with around 1,000 plums. If you need a plum recipe for anything you can possibly imagine, let me know—I’ve probably tried it! Better yet, stop by if you’re in the neighborhood and I’ll give you some fresh plums or some homemade jam.

I paired the plums with my favorite kind of butterfly, the Tiger Swallowtail, which is a frequent visitor to my garden. I also referenced an image of one of my favorite porcelain bowls in the Seattle Art Museum collection.

It’s surprising to me how happy it makes me to look at these plums, given the countless hours I spend peeling and pitting them. They really are delicious, but it’s also the beauty of the plums themselves. They’re just bursting with life, and the difference in color between the white, powdery bloom and my bright yellow fingerprints just dazzles me.

These little joys are more important than ever right now. Little obstacles and conflicts that used to be so easy to brush off now have a way of feeling insurmountable. Our son is five and is supposed to start Kindergarten on September 7th. We’re worried about the new Delta strain that is more likely to harm children than previous variants of COVID, and we just don’t know what to do. It’s not always possible, but I’ll give you the advice I’m trying to give myself: give yourself some slack and some time to just relax and breathe.

I hope this painting inspires you to go outside, close your eyes to all your troubles and enjoy a bite of summer. 💛

Visit my Monthly Miniatures page to see them all.

Plums in blue and white porcelain bowl with swallowtail Butterflies. Dutch inspired Still life painting by Rebecca Luncan
Plums, oil on copper, 5″ x 5″

Handmade Dutch Ripple Frame

Each frame for this series of miniatures is hand made by Tom Matthews in New York. They feature carved ripples, made in the dutch tradion and take about a month to complete.

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Swallowtail Butterfly over Japanese Plums

by In Monthly Miniature Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Still life paintings, both universal and highly individualized

For my Into the Country monthly miniature series from a few years ago, I included one still life with plums and bees (pictured below) in the mix of portraits of animals. This was the first still life painting I’d done since art school, and it helped direct the focus for this years series, “In Season”. This is my eighth painting of this years still life series. I find the still life to be one of the most universally accessible genres of painting. I was amazed to find that still life paintings are also quite personal. Each item I place in my composition is carefully chosen and has personal meaning to me and I hope to my viewers as well.

From the Garden

My Japanese plum tree is the star of my little quarter-acre garden. Almost every August, I get around 2,000 plums from my one tree. Over the years my incredibly juicy plums have been eaten as is (watch out for juice going everywhere!), been made into jam, wine, sweet bread, liqueur, filled up my freezer for winter enjoyment and now they’re models for paintings.

The yellow of the plums make them the perfect companions to the equally golden and plentiful swallowtail butterfly. Swallowtails are found all over the world, and the Western Tiger Swallowtail I’ve featured in my painting makes its dazzling appearance in the Seattle area. And swallowtail butterflies are always fluttering around the garden. One friend said he’s never visited my garden without seeing at least one. This painting feels like distilling some of the beauty and magic of my garden.

Honey Bee and Japanese plum still life, oil paitning on copper by Rebecca Luncan
Into the Country- Honey Bees, oil on copper, 4″ x 4″