48 X 24

"Flora in the Fall" is my last painting for 2021. I started it with a few digital sketches. I had a vague idea to draw a girl with a long braid walking in a field with dry grass. Because of the short days and not much daylight in the winter I started drawing the stubble and gourds on the lawn in a monochromatic grisaille. The result was a graphic background, which I diversified with blue poppy pods. Then I remembered the little details in nature that I was discovering as a child in our summer cottage near Sofia: the white snails, lizards and butterflies in the meadows.

I worked without a direct model, carried by a melancholic mood while doing the initial drawings. I love realistic painting, but it only serves me to build my ideas and create my visual stories. 

I realized that I was trying to paint an archetypal image of Flora in the fall. Fall is a sad season and is never associated with Flora. I was thinking of the bear trees, in the mornings with lovely mists when only the mythical Samodivas (fairy creatures in Bulgarian folklore) are rummaging through the fields, and my mood was getting darker and morbid. 

Then,  I suddenly remembered the cure! Nature is always generous and offers a cure- a magical plant- evergreen, bringing unfading life. I painted the green geranium coming out between her feet, symbolizing health, longevity and protection in life! In every Bulgarian house, people grow geranium, which remains green under the snow and survives  in shade and moisture. It is one of the oldest plants on the planet, and survives where nothing else grows. In Bulgarian. "Geranium" and ''Health" are synonymous words. Geranium is the perfect archetype for immortality, hope, cure and ultimate human survival.