Research Trip: Stitching with Monet at the Art Institute of Chicago

Last summer I began to focus my research of Monet to his repetitions and most specifically his Grainstacks series.  This decision was in part due to my experience of seeing his Meules, fin de l'été at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris and how it glowed off the wall in their Impressionist Gallery and stole my attention from everything else.  In this series, it is interesting to see how he has broken up time and rendered the same motif(s) in such numerous iterations.  This idea of an artistic series like this was quiet a novel idea for the time, unlike today where artists fairly regularly will address a similar motif and topic in a series format.  

By choosing a simplified landscape and the fairly simplistic shape of a Grainstack, Monet focused his attention to capturing the color and experience of light and atmosphere and removed narrative as an artistic element.  Removing this narrative was important, as that forced the viewers to be seduced into these snapshots of time, experiencing the subtle changes of light and color of each moment of day and season.  As the field with grainstacks was located right behind his house in Giverny, it was easily accessible and very familiar to Monet, allowing the subtle details of the changing light to be evident to him. 

In the Art Institute:

On Wednesday, after my time in the Textiles Collection, I visited the Impressionists Gallery to view the 5 Grainstacks that they have on public view.  I had arranged with the European Painting department to have time to stitch before the museum opened on Thursday and Friday so this time on Wednesday afternoon allowed for some preparatory observation of color and photographing the paintings.  

I chose to focus on studying Monet's Stack of Wheat (Thaw, Sunset),1890/91, (Art Institute of Chicago, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Daniel C. Searle, 1983.166).  Why this one you may be wondering?  Honestly I chose to focus on this one as it had 1 grainstack, a fairly abstracted background and colors that I found both interesting and challenging.  There was a nice mix of smooth gradation in the sky with more textural optical mixing in the ground. 

 

 Materials: 

I contemplated a number of different approaches to this.  I landed on 18 count monocanvas with cotton embroidery floss.  I chose specifically to use cotton embroidery flosses (from Weeks Dye Works and Valdani) as they have a fairly dull sheen or matte finish.  Monet and most of the Impressionists chose not to varnish their paintings so their paintings do not have a glossy finish to them and are fairly matte in appearance.  I thought since he made that conscience sheen decision that it was important to match it with a thread that also had a matte finish to it.  

I have also deliberately decided to utilize all variegated thread colors.  This was a decision that was the result of all the square samples I have stitched the past few years.  Solid colors do not blend as well together and can many times result in a stripey appearance.  The variegated colors blend beautifully together and create a more painterly result.  It is also a good challenge that I cannot fully control where the variegation lands on the piece so there is a natural spontaneity and looseness that results. 

Just a side note on the floss:  The Weeks Dye Works cottons have a really beautiful sheen to them, almost like a semi-gloss.  The Valdani cottons are very matte.  I am assuming there is a difference in finishing processing, though I have absolutely no clue - just my guess.  Why is this important?  Well, it makes a difference when mixing your colors and it makes a difference within the composition.  The shinier flosses come forward visually and can jump up in dominance within both the thread mixture and overall composition.  If you are cognizant of it, you can use this to your advantage when stitching pieces. Sometimes the shine can make a thread read lighter than it actually is and sometimes it can reflect the surrounding colors. 

Now to the Stitching!:

 On the first day of stitching, I focused primarily on getting the colors to match.  After photographing the painting and creating a number of different sketches that recorded notes on composition and brush stroke direction, I started mixing my threads.  I only had 1.5 hrs. each morning before the museum opened to stitch so I had to be very deliberate about my time.  The Art Institute of Chicago has an amazing online publication on their Monet collection, Monet: Paintings and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago.  I knew that the hardest aspect to do from a distance would be to match the colors as digital and printed colors are never the same as what they are in person with the actual painting.  Brushstroke direction and overall composition were something that I could reference from their online publication.  Color was the trickiest part and therefore had to command the use of my time.

I decided to stitch the color mixtures like paint swatches instead of my normal grid of squares. The "paint swatches" are created with 8-9 strands mixed together.  I have recorded each color recipe on a matching map in my sketchbook (it looks a little bit like a crazy mind map!).  Each color mixture is stitched twice--once with cross-hatched or overlapping stitches and once with a smooth diagonal satin stitch.  I thought it was important to record and compare the same thread combination with different textures.  It is very interesting to me the difference that just the stitch direction and type makes on the perceived color.  It's not dramatic but it is a noticeable difference and one that needs intentional observation.  On Day 1, I focused on the colors in the sky and on Day 2, I focused on the colors in the grainstack.  These were the two areas that were the hardest to see "true to color" in photographs or from digital or print resources.  They were also the anchor areas in that the sky had the highest value colors and the haystack had the lowest value colors in the composition.

On Day 2, I used the last part of my time to stitch quick directional stitches that matched Monet's brushstroke directions.  I did these stitches in the highlight or key colors of each section.  On the canvas, I am using two different techniques.  The paint swatches are 8-9 strands mixed together in the needle.  The stitching on the composition is stitched with 1 strand at a time but utilizing the same mixture of colors that are in the paint swatches.  I intend to stitch this composition both ways to compare the finished results both for final appearance and speed.  

Overall, the experience of stitching a Monet while looking at the actual painting was an unimaginable treat.  While talking to my Dad on the phone while walking back to my hotel, he asked me what made the Monet's so special.  All I could say is that it couldn't be verbalized.  You have to see a Monet to understand.  The most beautifully printed books still pale in comparison.  The greatest digital resource still feels flat.  But standing in the middle of a gallery with 5 Stacks of Grain, a few scenes from London (Charing Cross Bridge, Houses of Parliament), a couple scenes from Vétheuil, and a few Waterlilies, that experience cannot be distilled into a few sentences or descriptive words. 

Many, many thanks to Devon from the European Painting department for arranging this stitching time up for me and to Isaac in the Textiles department for connecting me with Devon and arranging the time in the Textiles collection. 

Stack of Wheat (Thaw, Sunset), 1890/91, Claude Monet, Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Daniel C. Searle, 1983.166.

Selection of Resources and Further Reading:

Brettell, Richard R. "Monet's Haystacks Reconsidered." Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 11.1 (1984): 4-21. JSTOR [JSTOR]. Web.

Callen, Anthea. Techniques of the Impressionists. Secaucus, NJ: Chartwell, 1982. Print. 

Holmes, Caroline. Monet at Giverny. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Garden Art, 2011. Print.

Shaw, Jill. "Cats. 27–33. Stacks of Wheat, 1890/91." Monet Paintings and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago. Art Institute of Chicago, n.d. Web. May-June 2016.

Schaefer, Iris, Caroline Von. Saint-George, and Katja Lewerentz. Painting Light: The Hidden Techniques of the Impressionists. Milano: Skira, 2009. Print. 

Smith, Paul. Impressionism: Beneath the Surface. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1995. Print.

Thomson, Belinda. Impressionism: Origins, Practice, Reception. New York, NY: Thames & Hudson, 2000. Print.

Wildenstein, Daniel. Monet, the Triumph of Impressionism. Köln: Taschen, 2015. Print.

Research Trip: Textiles Department at the Art Institute of Chicago

Last week I had the amazing opportunity to take a research trip to the Art Institute of Chicago.  It was an amazing 3 days and I am now trying to reflect and process all I saw and studied.  I already am hoping to go back again!

I met Isaac Facio (in the Art Institute Textiles Department) at the TSA Conference in Savannah when I presented my research poster.  He graciously offered to coordinate a visit for me to see some of their pieces in the textiles collection and connected me with the European Paintings department to arrange some stitching time with Monet.  If you are interested in weaving, I highly recommend looking at Isaac's website for his research, The Fabric of the Universe, combining 3-d weaving techniques and astrophysics.

At the Art Institute Day 1: 
I spent the first part of the day with the Textiles Deparment and Isaac.  They had pulled a number of pieces of stumpwork and ecclesiastical embroidery for me to study.  I've put the links to of a couple of the pieces that I was able to view below.  In addition to the embroideries I studied, I was able to look at 2 tapestries as well that incorporated a good bit of metallic threads in them.  I was excited that they had left these pieces out for me as I have been interested in extending my research into comparing the color interactions in embroidery to those in tapestries since my trip to France a couple years ago and reading some of Michel Eugène Chevreul's writings on color theory.

Opus Anglicanum Fragment, 1400-1450, Art Institute of Chicago, Grace R. Smith Textile Endowment, 1995.385

English Opus Anglicanum Panel, 1995.385
I have to say I was particularly taken by this Opus Anglicanum piece and kept coming back to it and taking more detailed photos.  The split stitch was just stunning and tiny, tiny, tiny.  The color in person of the threads was really well preserved and there was a rich example of different techniques in this "small" piece.  It allowed for some wonderful study of the shading techniques.

It was interesting to observe how the metals and the stitched techniques were blended on this piece.  For example, Christ's hair and beard were rendered in stripes of modeled split stitch in yellow and green, a technique often seen in Opus Anglicanum.  Mary's hair, however, is rendered in stripes of yellow split stitch alternating with stripes of couched passing with a yellow couching thread.  Both faces and crowns were stitched in similar fashion allowing the difference in hair rendering to be both subtle (due to the repetition of yellow used) and easily comparable due to the anchors of similar surrounding techniques.  Observing from a small distance, it created a slight visual bounce and lightness (or feminine quality) to Mary's hair while Christ's hair was much more static feeling. 

This piece also offered a wealth of opportunities to study colored threads interacting with metals.  The background was created with areas of metal passing couched with red to create an interesting diamond pattern that changed in scale inside each connected area.  The bottoms of the columns had areas of red and blue couching and areas of colored laid work with a trellis of metal over the top.  The garments, rendered in modeled bands of split stitch, had a scattered pattern of metal crosses formed with couched passing and tips of metal purl and metal twists and passing trims. 

Picture Depicting the Queen of Sheba before King Solormon, 1601-1650, Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of Mrs. Laurance H. Armour, Sr. in memory of her mother, Mrs. Henry Malcolm Withers, 1962.773

Stumpwork Picture Depicting the Queen of Sheba before King Solomon, 1962.773
This piece of stumpwork had some really incredible sculptural qualities and some wonderful trims on the character's garments.  Specifically, there was a hammered metal trim that I have seen before in little details but not in this quantity of use.  These garments were really covered in metals including the hammered trim, spangles, purls, and smooth passing. I kept imaging how "blingy" it must have been before the metals had tarnished!

The way the crowns on the King and Queen were created was also very interesting as it mixed smooth purl with sead pearls in a looping technique that made the crown both pop off the surface and poses a kind of electric, mangled quality that created an overall charming feeling.

The scale of people to composition of this piece was also interesting.  There were 2 buildings in the background and a couple floral and fauna motifs, however the characters, due to their size and intricacy of detailing, were by far the stars of this panel and commanded the viewers attention.  In most of the stumpwork panels I have seen, the size of the people is not quite so dominant. 

Casket Depicting Scenes from the Old Testament, 1668, Art Institute of Chicago, Restricted gift of Mrs. Chauncey B. Borland and Mrs. Edwin A. Seipp, 1959.337

Stumpwork Casket Depicting Scenes from the Old Testament, 1959.337
This casket was huge and had tons of different techniques (especially needlelaces) on it.  It was so intricate and honestly so much fun to look at! One of my favorite techniques in stumpwork (and I know this is an odd one) is how the shadows of the needlelace flowers and butterflies are stitched in a matching satin stitch behind the needlelace.  This casket was covered in examples of this on the flowers, leaves and butterflies.

Another technique that I paid particular attention to was the use of pistol stitch (a french knot at the end of a long straight stitch done simultaneously) in some of the leaves.  It was noteworthy in the density of use and the banded shading that it was used for.  It is interesting to me that the banded shading was still used in a technique that could have easily not been banded.  With the needlelace, couched colored purls and satin stitch, I understand the use of banded shading is much easier/kind of the default required as it would be very difficult to have multiple needles going.  With the pistol stitch I think it is interesting that this visual banding is maintained as it would not have been difficult to swap out needles.  Same goes for the areas of cut colored purl, I wonder why they chose to align the cut bits in linear color formation.  This is something that I have seen a number of times in my different research trips and that I have been pondering for a while and this large casket has rekindled this curiosity in my mind.

Retable (Depicting Madonna and Child, Nativity, and Adoration of the Magi; Altar Frontal Depicting the Resurrection and Six Apostles), c. 1468, Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of Mrs. Chauncey McCormick and Mrs. Richard Ely Danielson, 1927.1779a-b

Spain, El Burgo de Osma Retable, 1927.1779a-b
This piece is on public view inside the Medieval Gallery.  Just a note if you want to go see it, it is only lit for 5 minutes at the top and half of each hour.  And yes, if you are wondering, I totally stalked it and returned multiple times to the point that the security guard finally came up to me and asked if I was a researcher and what I was looking at!  Thankfully the day I stalked it, the museum was fairly quiet and not too crowded.  The Thursday and Friday I was there, the museum was very packed, so just a note for future viewing!

Isaac also sent me the link to this video about this piece as it was just recently conserved:  The Retable from Chicago .  The video offers some great detail shots, so I highly recommend watching it!

Further links of Interest:
I also met Dr. Erica Warren, Assistant Curator in the Textiles Department, who will be speaking on Embroidery and the Arts and Crafts Movement at the International Embroidery Conference presented by the EGA in Chicago next spring. 

New Color Sampler

For the course I taught at Penland, I had the students use basic stitches and focus on color mixing by using multiple threads in their needle at the same time.  I ended up stitching this inchy sampler while I was there while I demonstrated the basic stitches.  It ended up being very relaxing finishing it up in the evenings and it showed the effect of mixing complementary colors.  Overall, it was pretty fun to stitch this sampler and compare the different rows and stitches to each other.

I used Appletons wool on linen twill.  Bottom line is 1 strand of purple, next row up is 1 strand purple + 1 strand yellow, 3rd row up is 2 strands purple + 1 strand yellow and top row is 3 strands purple + 1 strand yellow.  The stitches are all basic:  bullion knots, straight stitch, running stitch and stem stitch, chain stitch, cross stitch and french knots.

Penland: Working in Lilly Loom Studio

Last week I had the unbelievably amazing experience of teaching at Penland. Penland is just magical.  Truly if you ever have the opportunity to go there- go!  I have never experienced such generosity in knowledge and encouraging spirit in my life.  It will certainly be a memory I will treasure!

Growing up just an hour from here, Penland was always on a pedestal.  Only true artists went there!  It has been a dream of mine to go so to be given the opportunity to teach there was truly unbelievable.  I also got to choose my studio assistant, so I brought my student from NC State, Sydney Jones.  She had been a stand out student of mine in my Color Theory in Embroidery course and I had asked her to come with me after that class.  I think both of us "came down the mountain a different person" as Carola (one of the students in the workshop) phrased it. 

 My workshop was on the top floor of the Lilly Loom building with massive windows overlooking the mountains.  It was incredible because you could work in studio without feeling like you were really "indoors"!   The group of students I had was very diverse.  Two of my students were mothers of two of the other instructors, both of them also artists in their own right as well.  One was a husband to one of the instructors.  A few students were trying out embroidery for the first time.  A few had a good bit of stitching experience.  A couple had never been to Penland before and we had Carola who had been to over 15 Penland summers!  She had also done the workshop with Luke Haynes earlier in the summer and stitched some on her smaller quilt she had done in his workshop.  She was filled with stories, both about Penland and life in general and it was so much fun listening to them all!  

 Michelle stitching away.  She was using french knots mixed with chain stitches in a beautiful way to render water.  It was lovely to see the subtle ripple the mix of stitches created.

 Sydney is one of my talented NC State College of Design students and was an excellent Studio Assistant for me!  I had taken my class over to the "Japanese Binding and Decorative Papers" workshop by Yukari Hayashida.  Seeing the beautiful marbling and papers that her class was making inspired some of my students to try some marbling and rust dyeing. It was really such an amazing experience to be able to go and visit other studios and see how it influenced the students in my workshop. 

 The view from my room window.

  Ann showing her progress during a group show and tell session.  Hillary Fayle was the Studio Assistant for Leigh Suggs' workshop and shared her work with my class.  It was amazing meeting her and hearing about her process of making her embroidered leaves and seeing her new work.  Lots of us are now excited to experiment stitching with leaves, etc.  See Ann's leaf that she embroidered below too!

 

Kit was working on interpreting the colors of the trees in the woods.  He is married to the incredibly talented Deborah Horrell who was teaching the "Small, Smaller" workshop with Tom Spelth. 

 Helen describing her piece to everyone during a group show and tell.  She had painted a beautifully delicate arrangement of flowers and focused on using 1 strand of floss to add subtle detailing.

 Sydney found an old rag in the dye lab that had some beautiful colors and stains on it so she decided to use it for the ground fabric.  She is using mixes of metal thread techniques and thread mixing to respond to the colors and shapes on the dish rag.  I keep telling her to turn the hoop over because it is hard to see how much she has stitched until you see the stitching on the back! 

 Becky hanging up her silk organza that she has painted on with some pigments.  She also completed a beautiful inchy sampler using colors extracted from a piece of kudzu that she brought in and experimenting with different numbers of strands and color mixing.

 

To say this has been an amazing experience is such an understatement.  The people I have taught and met at Penland are magical.  Thank you to everyone who has made this time so special. 

Purple and Gold Canvaswork Gradients

A major part of my research investigating color interactions in metal embroidery is posing the question "what is gold's complement?"  I think it is an easy thing to assume that we can substitute yellow for gold but does it really interact the same way with the other colors?  We all know that the texture and surface of a thread can change it's appearance and affect on the composition but what happens when it moves from "shiny" to "metallic"?  Is gold metallic yellow or is gold a separate color to itself? 

I thought a good start was to stitch gradients moving from purple to gold.  If yellow can substitute for gold, then purple, as the complement of yellow, should also be the complement of gold.  This means that in the gradients, we should see a desaturation of both happening as they move towards the middle of the gradient.  So, can gold desaturate or "dirty" the purple and can purple desaturate or "dirty" the gold?  Additionally, using these samples, I can address the effect of stitch pattern to color perception.  

Some of the different gradients in the different canvas stitches.  These are all 1" x 1" squares on 18 count canvas. 

I'm working the gradient by row with the last column being the same stitch- Upright Gobelin. 

Another exciting discovery in this exercise for me was learning how to do a Sorbello Stitch.  I was watching Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn's DVD In Stitches while I stitched these the other night and I loved what Ms. Beaney was doing with the Sorbello Stitch so much that I decided to try it out.  I LOVE this stitch!  I love the texture and I love the movement of actually executing the stitch.  Will be using this stitch a lot more in the future and I'm curious what it would look like if I used some stretched purl or passing. 

Haystacks of Giverny: Satin Stitched Color Map

After completing my Haystacks of Giverny piece, I thought it would be interesting to make a "Color Map" of all the different color combinations that I utilized in the piece.  I thought it would be interesting to show the different color combinations in equal 1/2" satin stitched squares.  This way all the variables would be somewhat controlled to allow for the color combinations to be the main focus.  I also stitched the squares of color in the order that I used the color combination on the final piece.  The first color used is the top left square and the last color stitched is the bottom right. 

All but two of the color combinations that are the plain satin stitch use 3 strands of the variegated Valdani embroidery floss.  The two that do not are a single strand of the variegated Valdani floss and were the colors used for the seed stitching in the background of the image.  For the combinations using stretched gilt purl, I stitched a 3-stranded split stitch around the edge of the square and then worked the stretched cutwork like a satin stitch with the 2 strands of Valdani plus the stretch gilt purl.  

A few important things to keep in mind when viewing this.  I purposely used the 3 strands in the same needle and purposely allowed the strands to twist as they wanted to as I worked the square.  For the squares with stretched purl, I did not use pieces of cut purl that were uniformly stretched and I allowed the pieces of cut purl to nestle together as they wished.  Now, why would I do this you may be wondering.  I also wanted to use this Color Map as an experiment to capture the quick brush strokes of the Impressionists and Post Impressionists painters that I have been studying.  They were known for their en plein air painting and speed with which they applied the paint to the canvas--not because they were being sloppy but because they wanted to capture the fleeting movement and experience of light in nature and natural settings. 

Satin stitch is the smoothest stitch you can use as it is supposed to lay nice and flat to the surface of the fabric.  This meant that in order to capture the gestural quality of the brush strokes I had to depend on the color and thread mixing not on the texture or pattern of the stitch.  

 

I really enjoyed stitching this Color Map and it has given me lots more ideas for future stitching.  I think was I was most excited about though was to see the range I could get utilizing only 10-11 different threads. It was also very interesting to me to see the squares with the stretched purl.  Now, just to figure out more time to stitch!

Haystacks of Giverny

We all hear about Monet and his haystacks--unfortunately to the point that we overlook them.  I'll be honest, I overlooked them in books.  Why is it that if an artist uses a repetitive subject matter that we do this?  There is so much to learn (I am learning) from looking at the iterations, the subtle changes from this version to the next version!  Here's just a selection of some of his Haystacks. 

I had never seen a Monet haystack until we went to the Musée d'Orsay.  I was completely overwhelmed with their Impressionists exhibition and the sheer size and amount of amazing pieces on display, and yet the one piece that caught my breath, that made me really pause and wonder was Monet's "Meules, fin de l'été" (Haystacks, Late Summer).  The colors, the mixtures, it GLOWED!!!!  It was the first of many Monet Haystacks I saw that trip and I cannot get enough of looking at them since we returned.

 

 

When we were at Monet's House and Gardens in Giverny, I took a ton of photos and plan on turning these photos into a new series of work integrating the color mixing principles that I am experimenting with and learning into these compositions.  This is my first finished piece.  It utilizes my photograph digitally printed on Kona cotton from Spoonflower layered with the same image digitally printed at home on silk organza with mixtures of Valdani 6-strand embroidery floss, DMC metallic floss and stretched gilt smooth purl.  

I purposely utilized a very limited number of stitch types to really challenge myself on the color mixing aspect of this piece.  Stitch types included are:  seed stitch, detached chain, bullion knot, french knot and herringbone. 

For the haystack, I have layered flat herringbone stitch in just cotton stranded Valdani, then layers of Valdani + DMC metallic floss and finally a top layer of stretched smooth purl.  Part of me wants to put some more cut purl on there but I think I need to live with the piece for a little bit first.  

For the dahilias, I had originally planned to silk shade them.  I had thought that it would be interesting to have just a bit of more realistic stitching in the composition to contrast with the more pixelated quality of the other stitches.  However as I worked the composition, I thought it would actually feel weird and not match.  I landed on using bullion knots with French knots to capture the energy of the petals in the dahilias and also to build up the texture more as the bullion knots and French knots sit higher on the piece than the detached chain stitches. 

 

  There are over 40 different color combinations from 10 different variegated Valdani threads used in this composition, referencing not only my photographs but also the color mixing that Monet used in his Haystacks.  I worked from the shadows up for the most part, though as with any project, there are always exceptions!  There is zero white and black in this piece, and the only time I have used pure color (a single color by itself) is when I have used 1 strand of floss for the seeding.  It is also interesting to note that I have bumped up the saturation of the the floss colors in the highlights and shadows. 

 Finally, I purposely did not use a hoop to allow for the fabrics to twist and bunch in areas and allow the different layers of the digitally printed images to shift.  I'm excited to start the next one!

France: Day 2 Giverny and Monet's Gardens

I love gardens.  I love flowers.  I love the colors, the textures, the fragrance.  I love the relaxed pace that a garden gives me--that I forget time and focus on the tiny details of the buds about to bloom and the bugs crawling around.  So I set out to Giverny to see Monet's actual gardens.  I wanted to see the lighting he saw.  I wanted to immerse myself in his environment.  So, how different were his gardens to his paintings?  As the focus of the Impressionists was to capture the true essence of light, I thought experiencing "Monet's light" was an important part of the process of evaluating the colors in his paintings.   

 

The greatest part of the day in Giverny was the fact that the weather changed.  It started sunny, clouds moved in and it got chilly and overcast, then the sun came out and washed the clouds away bright as could be.  All these changes happened as I made my way through the gardens.  I took my time, leisurely walking through the gardens enjoying the scenery and taking copious amounts of photos, trying to soak in every detail I could and capturing the overall scene, different viewpoints and details. 

I have tried to pick my “favorite” photos from Monet’s Gardens, but trying to do that is like trying to pick just a couple macarons to eat at Laudree or Fortnum and Mason—when looking at your options your automatic answer is “I’ll take them all, thank you!” but your brain knows that you cannot actually eat the whole counter of them (or pay!).  In the same way, I would love to show you all my photos I took but alas I have had to heavily edit down which ones I share!

It was so interesting to watch how the color of the flowers changed as the clouds rolled in.  The highlights disappearing and the overall contrast from highlight to color to shadow mellowing. 

As the sun came back out, you can see the harder highlights that it gave to the flowers.  It was interesting to see which flowers popped during the different weather conditions and when photographing them (whether among other plants, against the sky or water). 

You cannot go to Monet's gardens and not pay attention to the water lilies. 

The water was so still the whole time and it was exciting to see the reflections in the water adapt to the changing weather. 

The sun had just popped out and everything looked like it had a "top coating" of sun just on the top edges of everything.

Clouds moving back in ....

I love taking photos of moss and with the interesting twisting and looping of the branch, I could not resist capturing this moss!

Haystacks (not the actual ones Monet painted)!