Sunflowers - Day 374: 5 Minute Freewrite: Monday - Prompt: sunflower seeds

Day 374: 5 Minute Freewrite: Monday - Prompt: sunflower seeds

Seven years ago

our middle child had not left home yet, and our dog Blaise was still alive and photo-bombing with a tail, an ear, a snout, some body part of his, in every picture we ever took. Bailey was guilty too but Blaise was the size of a small horse.

That sunflower painting Claire was working on in this photo: she was using oil, not acrylic, for the first time, and it took something like two years for that painting to feel dry to the touch. I have no idea how Van Gogh got his oil paintings dry enough to take to a gallery, where, inexplicably, none ever sold.

I rue the day she first sold a painting

because it got her so excited, she sold at least a dozen originals,
including this one with her beloved ~ Sunflower ~ headband:

For a hundred dollars she let go of a priceless (to me) treasure.

She painted this one at age 16 from a photo of her at age two, pouring imaginary tea into a faux silver teacup. Such intent concentration!

One of her paintings, Mama Fox

and her cubs home sick with the flu, failed to win an art contest, but we employed @rhondak's husband Scott to commemorate the painting on a set of 30 coffee mugs, which went fast. I gave far too many of them away. Didn't sell even one but now have only two of them left in my cupboard.

---

She stopped painting

and in college she switched to fashion illustration and sewing her original designs.

Sunflowers

were ever a part of her work. When she got married, her bridesmaids carried...

Sunflowers!

They symbolize sunshine and joy, and birds at the feeder, but they do so all the more because of our daughter.

(You guessed it: this was her wedding cake!)