native wildflower series

The Language of Flowers

If you’ve been on my site for 30 seconds or more, a) thank you for being here and b) you may have noticed I’m into flowers. As in, I paint a lot of flowers, I make patterns with them, and I use flowers in many of my designs of all kinds. I may not exactly speak the language of flowers, but I sure do listen to what they have to say.

Going Native

When I first started painting flowers, I knew very early on that eventually I would do an entire series of native wildflowers. Eventually. Like all good procrastinators, it has taken me a while, but I finally have something to show you, thanks to my trusty iPad and Procreate. First I should set the scene: for this collection, I’m concentrating on flowers native to where I live in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.

My husband, Brett, is really the one who started my interest in native plants. I’ve always enjoyed the outdoors, and flowers, and all that good stuff, but I never thoght too much about any of it aside from admiring the beauty. He’s much more scientific than I am, wanting to know the common names, and the Latin names, and the growth habits, and the pollinators, and….well, you get the idea.

I’m not that person. I’m the artistic one, the one who admires, and photographs, and paints, but can never remember the scientific name. But his enthusiasm led to our 4 acre garden being planted almost entirely in native plants, and I’ve caught a bit of the plant bug myself. At least I know some of the common names, and I have a whole Pinterest inspo board of vintage botanical illustrations.

A design geek note here about this collection. I wanted to honor classic botanical illustrations, but not copy them, and I was having trouble finding a font that worked for my vision. So I created my own font, my first one! But that’s a story for another time.

Here it is, the first in the collection: the Southern Nodding Trillium, or Trillium rugelii. Rare and incredibly beautiful. I hope I did it justice.

Licensing

If you think this native Appalachian wildflowers collection could be a good fit for your business, it is available for licensing. Just drop me a line on the form below, or email me, and let’s talk about it!